Setting the ledger straight
BANKERS: PAYBACK TIME BBC2, 9pm
WITH the red cheeks and shifty feet of bad boys caught in the act, some of the heads of Britain’s banks talk in this documentary about how much they have changed since the banking crisis. We became too self-centred, they say. Sales incentives went too far, they say. We’re good boys now, they say.
By the end of this programme, you’re tempted to say “yeah right” because although all the words of contrition are there, nowhere is there any evidence of a willingness for real structural change to the banks.
The witnesses are impressive though. There is Sir Philip Hampton, RBS Chairman, Antonio Horta Osorio, Lloyds Group CEO; and the Archbishop of Canterbury among others and the subject for discussion is how Britain’s multi-billion pound financial mis-selling scandal of payment protection insurance (PPI) came about.
At one point, PPI was delivering up to a third of retail banks’ profits but latest estimates suggest the compensation bill for PPI could be £25 billion. In unravelling how this rip-off came about, here are first-hand accounts from bank bosses, sales staff, politicians and customers and all of them trace the changes to banking over the last 30 years. We were given convenient, free banking services and easy credit but the bankers abused the trust of customers in the search for quick profits.
The problem is that there is no consensus about this problem can be fixed.
There is the suggestion that banks should become safer and more boring but none of the chief executives interviewed (including Sir Philip Hampton and Antonio Horta Osorio) appear willing to support it.
But should we blame them? Aren’t we the reason for the lack of change anyway?
We may tut-tut at the bankers’ behaviour but if we did force them to become more sensible and careful, they might not lend us money when we ask for it, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?