From Bill Summers
Mark Buchanan's analysis of bad behaviour in the banking system is welcome, but does not go far enough (6 August, p 18). I suspect the Basel 3 rules introducing risk analysis into the system in 2019 are not only too little and too late, but wrong-headed. They are just more of the same oxymoronic “self-regulation” that has wrecked aspects of the world economy since the big crash in 2008. Banks are a vessel in which personally risk-free bad behaviour can take place. Nice work if you can get it.
It is not a coincidence that the professions of law, teaching, medicine and architecture are the least prone to corruption. The members of these professions have a code of practice to which they must personally adhere, or be excluded from practicing it. Better behaviour than the mere lawful is required.
It may grate and be counter-intuitive, but banking needs to be made a profession.
Sturminster Newton, Dorset, UK
