GoodCorporation response to Sir Richard Lambert’s Banking Standards Review

19 May 2014

Leo Martin, GoodCorporation director said:

“It is absolutely right that the Banking Standards Review Council should focus on ethics and behaviour. The vast majority of the problems that have damaged the sector’s reputation have stemmed from malpractice and misconduct.  Establishing a body to define, advocate and embed high standards of good practice should be applauded in this sector. In the past, an over-reliance on rules created compliance focussed tick-box cultures driven by the letter rather than the spirit of the law.

It is time to focus on high standards of behaviour that are adopted collectively throughout the sector. The proposal to develop an industry-wide code of conduct, with performance against this measured and benchmarked is a good one. If successful, we should see a race to the top, with banks striving for continuous improvement. Not only would this be in the public interest, in the long term, it will also benefit the institutions themselves.”

Note to editors:

Leo Martin is available for interview or comment, contact sally.mcgeachie@goodcorporation.com or 020 8877 5300.

GoodCorporation is one of the leading organisations working in the field of business ethics, specialising in the assessment of responsible management practices. In the finance sector, GoodCorporation worked with the Institute of Business Ethics (IBE) to establish the assessment framework for the Banknote Ethics Initiative.

GoodCorporation also worked with the IBE to develop the assessment framework for Investing in Integrity.

Over 450 business ethics assessments have been conducted by GoodCorporation for a  wide range of clients including multinationals, FTSE 100 companies and SMEs such as Total SA, Centrica, BG Group plc, BBC Worldwide, GDF-SUEZ, BAE Systems, Telefónica, Xstrata and Shire