Contrite or what !

"We will apologise, acknowledge these mistakes, answer for our actions and give our absolute commitment to fixing what went wrong."

... a commitment to change,possibly, but how long before it all happens once again.


Another banking scandal, this time HSBC has been caught with its corporate trousers (pants in the USA) around its ankles over :

... a report into HSBC, released ahead of a Senate hearing on Tuesday, that says huge sums of Mexican drug money almost certainly passed through the bank.

This is another case of "compliance gone wrong", I read recently ...

"We did our best, the right boxes were ticked, how could we know?"

Is 21st century compliance more about giving cover from culpability than rooting out bad behaviour ?

... could it be that compliance in banking should be an external organisation.


For those who hold Adam Smith in high regard I humbly remind you of these words :

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

• Book I, Chapter X, Part II, p 152

... a great mind with a crystal ball tuned into 21st century markets.