Bankers slammed for “astonishing” financial mess
A culture of easy reward encouraged British bankers to make an “astonishing mess of the financial system” and regulators need to consider whether banks should be broken up, British politicians said on Friday.
“The culture within parts of British banking has increasingly been one of risk-taking leading to the meltdown that we have witnessed,” a cross-party committee of politicians said in a damning 121-page report into the collapse of the banking sector.
The Treasury Select Committee made a series of recommendations and said the possible split of retail and investment banking arms remained a “live issue which requires further debate”.
The committee blamed a period of low interest rates, the search for yield, a misplaced faith in financial innovation and a failure of the supervisory system for the collapse of top banks.
“Bankers have made an astonishing mess of the financial system,” the report said. “However, this was a failure not only within individual banks but also of the supervisory system designed to protect the public from systemic risk.”
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