Following the announcement earlier this week that Barclays had been charged for fixing interest rates, many are understandably up in arms and are demanding a public inquiry into the banking system.
Leading the charge on this is leader of the opposition Ed Miliband, and even the governor of the Bank of England Sir Mervyn King admitting the banking culture needs changing, adding that customers had received shocking treatment.
While a public inquiry would hold bankers to account and could potentially see new regulation introduced to effectively stop bankers doing what they want and most galling of all getting away with it.
I have just one question why now, surely the time to hold an inquiry into the banking system and codes of practice was in 2008 when they nearly bankrupted the entire world, I mean if you were a banker and you got away with causing a global recession by gambling with billions and billions of other people’s money and you still didn’t lose your job, you must walk around feeling untouchable.
There have been those who have said that bankers are easy target, but I don’t agree and I’ve yet to hear an explanation that justifies the reasons for chief executives in the banking sector receiving millions in bonuses when they are running their businesses at a loss, a major loss in some cases.
If bankers want to shake their tags then maybe they should act more responsibly and treat their customers with a little respect, it may sound alien to them but it might just start the process of getting the public back on their side.
This process would be aided by an inquiry that investigated and hopefully removed those most culpable of malpractice, and left those who aren’t breaking the rules (there must be a few) to get on with the job and do the right thing.
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