Member Article

Public distrust in financial sector to be tackled

A high-profile summit has been called to discuss the future of Britain’s financial sector, with the hope of restoring the sector’s reputation amongst the public.

MPs and business leaders will meet in London on the 15th April as a response to a lack of confidence amongst the public in financial services and concerns of policy makers.

City firms will be amongst the 100 representatives, who will examine ways to create a ‘new settlement’ with wider society.

Other participants will include the Shadow Business Secretary, Chuka Umunna, FSB’s national policy chairman, Mike Cherry, Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ board member for reputation and policy, Richard Sexton, and Barclays’ chief of UK retail and business banking, Ashok Vaswani.

Gavin Hayes, editorial director for hosts, Policy Review Intelligence, said: “Five years on from the financial crisis in 2008 there is still a palpable lack of trust in not just banking, but the finance sector as a whole – such low levels of trust cannot be healthy for our economy or indeed wider society.

“Trust can in part be rebuilt by City leaders coming together to find solutions and then committing to a process of culture change within their businesses – more fundamentally in order to address the current ‘trust deficit’ we need a new settlement between the finance sector and wider society.”

Ashok Vaswani from Barclays added: “Meeting the evolving needs of customers, businesses and wider society means banks need to think differently.

“Doing this means engaging stakeholders and being committed to transparency, service and fresh thinking.”

Richard Sexton from PwC also commented: “This Summit is an important step towards finding a solution to the complex challenges around trust faced by financial services institutions.

“One solution that’s often put forward to rebuild trust is regulation; but regulation alone will never fully close the gap between fine words and authentic values-led behaviour.

“People’s attitudes and expectations of financial services institutions of all types have undergone fundamental shifts in the wake of recent events.

“To earn trust in this new environment, these changes in public expectations must be matched by a new sense of corporate and social purpose.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .