What will you demand for your £850BN?

By Gavin Hayes

As reported today in The Guardian and The Independent, yesterday Compass in partnership with nef, along with a unique range of leading figures from academia politics, the law, consumer and civil society groups launched an important new campaign calling for a Good Banking system – one that is secure and useful, as well as one that is economically, socially and environmentally fit for purpose. We are also calling on thousands of people across Britain to join us in demanding real reform from the Independent Commission on Banking

It’s hard to believe that three year’s after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression; which resulted in tax-payers bailing out Britain’s banks to the tune of £850BN that so little has changed – we still live with a largely unreformed banking sector with bad banks that are too big to fail.

Even Mervyn King the Governor of the Bank of England said recently that

“Of all the many ways of organising banking, the worst is the one we have today.”

The Independent Commission on Banking has been charged with the task of coming up with a range of reforms for the government to then adopt.

We know that the commission is coming under intense lobbying from the banking sector – in essence the banks are using bailout money to lobby for the right to be bailed out again.

So we now want the commission to hear the voices of ordinary tax-payers – people like you and I who bailed out the banks to the tune of billions. We therefore need you to send an email in support of our call for Good Banking. We urgently need you to urge the commission to adopt our three simple and sensible common-sense proposals that would provide the foundations for a good banking system.

Firstly, we’re calling for the full separation of retail and investment banking so as to better insulate and protect tax-payers against failure and provide depositors with safe institutions in which to keep their money.

Secondly, we’d like to see the creation of a genuinely mixed and plural banking sector with far more choice for people than the present one-size-fits-all model with its few ‘too big to fail’ banks. Such a sector would for example include flourishing building societies, local and regional banks, green banks, a post bank run through the post office network, co-operatives and mutuals so that all sections and needs of society and business are properly catered for.

And thirdly we want an independent, wide-ranging and extensive inquiry into the root causes of the worst banking crisis for over 60 years. This inquiry should bring forward comprehensive proposals of the reforms needed to build a good banking system.

We simply cannot afford to sit back and allow Britain’s big banks to return to business as usual. Instead we need to put pressure on the Independent Commission on Banking and then the government to deliver a Good Banking system for all. I therefore urge you to join the call for Good Banking today.

For all the details on this important initiative and for all the fact and figures visit the Good Banking Forum website launched at: www.goodbanking.org.uk.

Gavin Hayes is General Secretary of Compass