'Sociopaths in suits' - Why the Banks won't change.

The financial crisis, The Credit Crunch, The Apocalypse (as some would have it) - we all have a different take on the crisis that has affected so many of us all over the world. Lehman Brothers went KABOOM and the whole economic world went into a tailspin. Of course this was years ago now and we are still feeling the pinch – Greece is on the verge of collapse, the European Union is fumbling about trying to figure out what the magic bullet looks like and the press have indulged themselves in the kind of scare-mongering that used to be the reserve of the Cold War and nuclear Armageddon.

What of the perpetrators, what of the Banks? Much has been said and written about Bankers bonuses, how UK banks that are part or majority owned by the British taxpayer are still paying bonuses out to their chief Executives and the backlash it has had from the general public. But what people don’t understand is why, after being bailed out, why they have not apologised, why they are still paying bonuses for failure and why they haven’t changed their ways. Want to know why?

I am an ex-corporate banker. I worked for one of the large UK banks that were bailed out by the taxpayer and I can tell you with 100% certainty that nothing has changed. The culture of the banks is exactly the same pre-Credit Crunch; the people that got us into the mess in the first place are still there, still drawing a salary, still getting bonuses.

There has been no apology, not to the public, the taxpayers or even the staff. As far as the Banks are concerned it wasn’t their fault, it was the market. They weren’t to know that the bubble was going to burst; they couldn’t forecast that borrowing had reached dangerously unstable levels. Couldn’t forecast or didn’t want to see the truth? Banks mitigate risk, they manage it, they spend millions on analysis and risk assessment – it’s what they do. Couldn’t forecast market change? That’s like the weatherman not being able to predict the weather.

Then there are the bonuses. Banks have been defending big bonuses with the excuse that without them they would be unable to attract the best talent. A fallacy if ever there was one. Most banks hire from within, they promote rather than look elsewhere. Even if they were to look outside their walls they would find unemployment at record levels. I’m pretty sure there are a few people out there that they could hire. Of course they need to attract the best people – like the ex-Chief Executive of the bank I worked for. Before he ran the bank into the ground he was in charge of a major Supermarket chain. Not banking, supermarkets. Imagine trying to get a top job anywhere with no experience of the role you were applying for. That’s why they pay the bonuses, to attract people with no experience, makes perfect sense.

The other issue with bonuses is the perception of ‘rewarding people for failure’. Take another publicly owned bank which recently announced losses of over £700 million. They paid ALL their staff bonuses. Can anyone think of a situation where a company loses money and the staff are rewarded for it? But if you talk to bank staff the bonus is EXPECTED – regardless of whether the bank is doing well or not. This is a cultural issue inside the banks and until that is changed we the taxpayer will continue to see people that we bailed out, that we kept in a job, that have made all our lives more difficult, being paid extra money on top of their salaries regardless of whether a publicly owned company succeeds or not. Getting rewarded for failure or getting rewarded regardless? Either way it is wrong.

Now for the dirty little secret that all the banks want to keep quiet – they are set targets of how many customers they have to get rid of. So the bank that you own, that you may have banked with for many years and have showed loyalty to, is taking your money while scheming to get rid of you behind your back. They have too much debt and the little people who aren’t super-rich or run a small business are of no use to banks. Instead they have taken the Governments bail-out money and used it to balance their books – why do you think they’re not lending? It’s better for them to keep the money rather than wasting it on small businesses or first time buyers looking for a mortgage.

The FSA could step in, if it were not for the fact that the people who run the banks are ex-bankers themselves with connections to the same institutions that they should be sanctioning. Cronyism runs deep within the financial industry. People are promoted not based on any kind of meritocratic system but rather because their ‘face fits’ (which is a nice way of saying that nepotism and favouritism is rife). Half these people couldn’t run a bath never mind a bank.

The Banking culture hasn’t changed. Rather like a Vegas Casino - ‘The House always wins’. We are being held ransom by greedy avaricious institutions, run by the guiltless and apathetic. This is not a rant by some third party commentator - this is based on my own personal experience, an experience that I eventually had to threaten legal action against in order to bring to an end. Don’t expect anything to change anytime soon because as you’ve probably already noticed the Banks will put themselves first and everyone else second, or to put it another way - 

Sociopaths are interested only in their personal needs and desires, without concern for the effects of their behaviour on others.