Making British Banking Better

This chapter considers whether actions taken by banks and policy makers since the 2007–9 financial crisis have made British banks and banking ‘better’ through the restoration of public trust that banks serve the public good and are ‘socially useful’; and by protecting taxpayers against having to bail-out banks again in the future. With regard to the restoration of trust, Section 2 reports on the deliberations of a Panel addressing the question: ‘Have we made banking good?’ Section 3 reports on the findings of the ‘Taxing Banks Fairly’ work stream of an AHRC project completed in February 2016 that considered the balancing of the regulation and taxation of banking as a means of protecting taxpayers from bank bail-outs. Section 4 explores the question of whether the ‘regulatory’ cycle in the UK has turned, from tightening to relaxation, too soon: before banks have demonstrably improved their iberali; before competition in UK retail banking has been enhanced significantly; and before taxpayers are protected properly. Section 5 considers: whether the Banking Standards Board, established in 2015, be able to raise banking standards: and whether ‘Open Banking’ initiative, imposed from January 2018 by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (and conformable with the EU’s Payments Services Directive, PSD2), will deliver better financial services to the banks’ retail consumers (households and small and medium sized enterprises, SMEs). Sect. 6 concludes that a new social compact for retail banking in the UK seems to be required.