Current Students and Staff

// University News

31 Jul 2014

SBE professor calls for bankers to swear an oath to raise standards in banking

A new report, which has been co-authored by Professor David Llewellyn from the School of Business and Economics (SBE), has called for the immediate introduction of an oath for bankers, similar to the Hippocratic Oath, in order to raise accountability and standards in banking.

The report authors believe that, despite nearly five years of financial reform, the job of banking reform can best be described as half complete. They suggest this is because policy makers have pursued the wrong type of reform, focussing 'wrongly' on regulatory or prudential issues, and ignoring the crucial root cause of the banking crisis: an inherent lack of virtue amongst UK banking institutions.

In order to instil virtue and responsibility, the report states, bankers must have more personal responsibility, which the authors maintain is best promoted by developing a better sense of professionalism and ethics. Key to this is requiring all members of the banking profession to affirm a new Bankers’ Oath.

Read the full press release for more.