Bank deregulation was another great, ’80’s idea, as a result of which many a pigeon is still coming home to roost. Your friendly, high street retail bank (now a wine bar or pizza joint) was suddenly able to become a merchant bank/stockbroker/forex trader/financial adviser, you name it. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and despite all the fines, the genies (to use a topical Aladdin metaphor) are now far too big to push back into their once-uncorrupted and comfortable old bottles.
“Bank of Scotland fined £45.5m over fraud failure”
Unbelievably, in its pomp and at the height of its powers, RBS’s balance sheet was larger than the whole of the UK economy. Little wonder that its management lost control of the worst of its staff or (depending on your viewpoint) felt they were so big and powerful...