Tory minister Stephen Green on legality, morality and banking – in his own words

Tory Lord and Trade minister Stephen Green has been having a bit of a sticky day, after it emerged that HSBC, which he was Chair of for four years prior to being appointed a minister, was “accused of allowing drug king pins, terrorists and rogue nations to launder money through its global subsidiaries”.

It’s a good job Green isn’t a member of the Cabinet Committee for Banking Reform – except he is. Embarrassing…

I think Stephen Green put it best himself when he said back in 2009:

“there have been too many who have profoundly damaged the industry’s reputation… It is as if, too often, people had given up asking whether something was the right thing to do, and focused only on whether it was legal and complied with the rules.”

As Political Scrapbook put it “Clearly when he was in charge of HSBC they may have even given up on the “legal and complied with the rules” bit.