Policy Paper: Andy Mullineux: Have we made British banking good? 181-198

This paper develops themes discussed by a Panel of speakers at a Bournemouth University ‘Festival of Learning, June 2014’ event entitled: ’Have we made banking good?’ It reports on the Panel’s deliberations. In light of the UK Chancellor George Osborne’s post-election announcement in June 2015 that it was time to reach a ‘new settlement’ with the UK financial sector, it seems that the time for bankers’ remorse is finally over ­– Bob Diamond had just called it too soon in his evidence to the Treasury Select Committee in January 2011. But has the ‘regulatory cycle’ in the UK turned before taxpayers are fully protected from the risk of having to ‘bail out’ the (now bigger) ‘too big to fail’ banks and other ‘systemically important financial institutions’? The panel consisted of Ms Kate Elliot, Investment Management Services at Rathbones, Liverpool; Mr Ed Mayo, Secretary-General of Co-operatives UK; and Professor Richard A. Werner, D.Phil. (Oxon), Chair in International Banking at the University of Southampton. The event was chaired by Professor Andy Mullineux and hosted by Professor Jens Hilscher, Head of the Department of Finance, Bournemouth University.