The report reveals, in very practical terms, how the deeply troubled financial sector could be transformed by learning from the commercial insurgents banging on the gates of the banking fortress. These companies and initiatives are tiny when compared financially to the behemoths controlling global banking but they are giants in terms of creativity and customer care.
For too long the culture and values of the banks encouraged managers to pursue profits at the expense of their customers’ interests. Banks have an asymmetrical relationship with customers: bankers know a lot more than their customers about the complex products and services they offer.
An inappropriate retail culture meant bank staff were rewarded for selling customers products they neither fully understood nor needed. Banks will not change fundamentally unless they resist exploiting this asymmetry and instead treat their customers with greater restraint, responsibility and respect.
Nothing is fixed in stone. There are alternatives to this dominant but flawed approach.These alternatives can show banks can make a decent commercial rate of return with very different approaches, in which they work with customers to enable them to manage their money more carefully and intelligently.
pdf 196.4 KB
Contributors
The FairBanking Foundation
Related reports
-
Improving health through economic development
Anna Markland Liv Chai Nicholas Heslop
The RSA have created an Economies for Healthier Lives Programme Coaching Resource that pulls together our experience, insight and case studies from the five ‘Hubs’. This resource is designed to support those looking to learn from and replicate this work to get supported at every stage, from project inception through to legacy planning.
-
Unleashing the potential of the UK's cities: Core City profiles
This Core City profiles report extends the RSA’s UK Urban Futures Commission report, Unleashing the potential of the UK’s cities, released in September 2023.
-
Creative Corridors: connecting clusters to unleash potential
Jolyon Miles-Wilson Hayley Sims Tom Stratton Bernard Hay Emily Hopkins
This report offers creative corridors as a mechanism for harnessing this growth. Our ambition is that creative corridors will stimulate economic growth by increasing linkages.