James Moore: Being good is better than just appearing to be good

Outlook Colette Bowe, the chair of the Banking Standards Review Council, says she’s confident international banks will fall into line with their UK peers and back her organisation’s bid to crackdown on the bad boys of banking.

And they probably will, too. Not doing so would represent something of an own goal from a public relations perspective.

But Britain already has the Financial Conduct Authority, and its principles of business call on banks to behave with integrity, to treat customers fairly, and to operate with skill, care, diligence and so on. It also has the power to levy considerable sanctions.

Banks, and especially those that manage them, therefore really ought to be responsible for complying with those principles, rather than signing up to a body that might provide them with a bit of spurious respectability but precious little else.