We are reaching a corporate moral precipice when our most ‘reputable’ organisations are now accused of rigging important industry benchmarks, of laundering money for drug dealers and terrorists, of fabricating files and other forms of customer histories, and of basic cheating and lying.

At the same time, we are caught in the contradictory web on trying to tell our children that they should not cheat or lie and should be kind to each other.

All this moral confusion comes on top of having our press on trial, a breakdown in management processes at the Olympics and of crises in the church and in parliament.

What are we to think as a society when the very pinnacle of our institutions are each and everyone experiencing some form of ethical and moral meltdown?

Of course, crisis is not new to financial services, but for the last five years we have been battling with our own demons, of how to put right the dysfunction in family life, of individuals being unprepared to look after themselves and their elderly relatives, of the traditional fall back on the state when thins go wrong.

If ever there was a time when trust and ethical behaviour must be placed at the heart of, not only financial services, but our social lives, it is now.