Bankers should adopt an equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath to help redeem their industry, Phillip Blond has said.
The ResPublica think-tank director said: “As countless scandals demonstrate, virtue is distinctly absent from our banking institutions. Britain’s bankers lack a sense of ethos and the institutions they work for lack a clearly defined social purpose.
“The bankers’ oath represents a remarkable opportunity to fulfil their proper moral and economic purpose and finally place bankers on the road to absolution.”
A ResPublica report, Virtuous Banking: Placing ethos and purpose at the heart of finance, argues for codes of conduct, tougher shareholder fiduciary duties and for small businesses to be reclassified as consumers.
John Ditchfield, director of Barchester Green Investment and chair of the Ethical Investment Association, said: “Getting them to stand in a room with a picture of the Queen and a hand in the air might sound silly, but asking individuals in organisations to reflect on the wider social consequences of their day to day decision-making is a healthy thing.”
Labour MP and Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury Cathy Jamieson (pictured) said: “For banks to regain public trust it needs more than regulatory revisions and legislation, necessary as those are.
“The culture of banking must also change, with a focus on what customers need, and the banking profession to work to ethical and professional standards which put the needs of customers, including small businesses, at the heart of what they do.”
Paul Chisnall, executive director for financial policy and operations for the British Bankers’ Association, said: “Restoring trust and confidence is the banking industry’s number one priority. But meaningful cultural change in an industry as complex and diverse as banking takes time.
“It may be that the new standards review body decides that some within the industry should be subject to an oath or a code of ethics. It very well could be part of the answer.”
Hilary McVitty, head of external affairs for the Building Societies Association said: “The idea of a bankers’ oath is not new but is an interesting facet of a multi-dimensional debate which is already well under-way among firms and the regulators.”
RIGHT TO REPLY - Benson Hersch, the Association of Short Term Lenders chief executive, was unavailable for comment but a spokesman stressed its broad support for the initiative and referred to its Value Charter focusing on the importance of fairness in dealing with customers.
