Leading article: The faintest flicker of humility from the banks

 

Wednesday 27 June 2012 23:40 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Is the penny at last starting to drop? RBS has cancelled its corporate hospitality at Wimbledon, sort of. Those with tickets may use them, but they can forget the strawberries and Pimm's. This is no money-saving exercise; rather the bank seems belatedly to have figured that pictures of executives and guests living it up would sit ill with customers left high and dry by the bank's "technical issues". Quite so.

Then yesterday one of banking's most aggressive defenders of stratospheric pay, Bob Diamond of Barclays, decided to forgo his bonus and said "Sorry" after the bank was fined £290m for misconduct. You could argue that a bonus-sacrifice, even of millions, hardly matches the severity of breaches that threatened the very integrity of the banking sector. One penny might have dropped, but there are many pounds still to go.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in