Sticks or Carrots? How to Make British Banks More Socially Responsible

摘要

SUMMARY?The relationship between banks and society in theUKremains fragile more than ten years after the financial crisis. The level of public mistrust, though lower than in the aftermath of the crisis, still remains largely negative for banks, especially as scandals continue to plague the sector. This raises the question of the effectiveness of reforms adopted in the UK since 2008 to improve the public oversight of banks and change their culture. The reforms resulted in a significant expansion of financial regulation through the adoption of large numbers of new rules with binding effects on banks. New supervisory bodies were created to implement the new rules and to monitor closely the bank activities. This article reviews the effects of the reforms on bank culture and concludes that expanded regulation and compulsory norms brought about mixed results on addressing the cultural problems facing UK banks and on repairing the relationship between these banks and UK society. The article argues that more significant cultural change could come only from the banks themselves acting voluntarily and therefore, going forward, a new balance between compulsory rules and voluntary schemes should be established. The article contributes to the ongoing dialogue between industry experts, policy makers and lawyers about the optimum levels of financial regulation, especially in light of recent calls for rolling back parts of public interventions in the financial sector. The article also contributes to the debate about ways to improve the public image of UK banks.