Comment: Humble pie for the bankers

By Alex Brummer for the Daily Mail
Updated: 03:42 EDT, 10 May 2011

The lightning retreat of the banks over the mis-selling of payment protection insurance suggests the industry has something to learn from Santander-refugee António Horta-Osório at Lloyds.

When he started his new job he promised an intense focus on customers and their complaints.

Horta-Osório has delivered handsomely, conceding that his predecessors were involved in a £3.2bn mistake on PPI.

Having started the ball rolling his competitors felt they had little choice, with 'Safari' Bob Diamond of Barclays having the grace to apologise and make matters right.

Of course, the timing of Lloyds' decision to confront the PPI crisis made it impossible for the British Bankers Association - the representative body - to pursue its case.

The sight of a bunch of rich bankers, loaded down with multi-million pound wage packets and bonuses, taking on the consumer at a time when the Independent Commission on Banking is working on its final report, would have been tantamount to political suicide.

The march down the hill in lockstep does, however, suggest competition in the sector, which is being examined by Sir John Vickers and his team, leaves much to be desired.

The holy grail for consumer banking, as long as I can remember, is for the banks to stuff their customers with ever more products.

We are all familiar with the patter. You ring up your bank to make an over-payment on the mortgage, or some other routine transaction, and you are greeted with a long spiel about home insurance, ISAs or some other investment package you do not need.

The willingness of the banks to trap customers into low-interest-rate paying ISAs or some useless homegrown equity concoction (Lloyds is notorious for this) is scandalous.

Instead of improving service levels, they would much rather pocket a commission and collect a direct debit from the unsuspecting customer.

Britain's financial services industry has a notorious record of selling lousy goods from endowment mortgages to private pension plans and split capital trusts.

Most recently Barclays had to cave in on the sale of 'cautious' Aviva income bonds, which proved to be precisely the opposite.

The irritating aspect of this for shareholders is that the bankers take their bonuses for selling these baubles upfront. But there is no sensible claw-back mechanism for returning the wrongly accumulated bonuses to their rightful owners.

Then the bankers wonder why they are so distrusted.

All Greek

Still, if we think that our banks have problems what about poor old Greece. At the not-so-secret meeting of finance ministers in Luxembourg on Friday evening it was agreed to give Athens some breathing space amid a report it was preparing to secede from euroland.

The deficit deniers will argue that Greece's problems demonstrate why the International Monetary Fund/OECD/Brussels solution of rapidly cutting budget deficits is a terrible mistake and makes matters worse.

The problem is far deeper than that. Tax avoidance in Greece is a national disgrace with the elite shipowners, responsible for a chunk of national output, all but excluded from paying their fair share.

In the public sector the government has failed to fully implement the cuts promised.

The alternatives available to Greece are limited. As a member of euroland it doesn't have the option to devalue, so the pain has to be taken through cuts in real wages.

Debt restructuring will presumably come eventually. The danger is the haircut will be so severe it will destroy what is left of the Greek banking system.

Then there is the contagion risk. Any concessions offered to Greece will be demanded by Ireland and Portugal. Even Spain, which looked to be out of the drop zone, is back under siege. The political and economic price for the euroland 'hard currency' countries of propping up the periphery becomes higher with every passing day.

Pulling back

Darren Shapland, once earmarked as Justin King's successor at J Sainsbury, is to become a one day a week head of Sainsbury's bank. That is quite a downshift.

It looks as if the five-year Sainsbury's veteran found a newish job as group development director and his status as a leader-in-waiting a little over-whelming.

The tendency in the City is to see such escapes from the frontline as sign of weakness. It is thought to reflect badly on the senior executives who elevated the person in the first place.

But there is another way to look at it. Not every senior executive finds the long hours and commitment at the very top, with its severe pressures on family life, very congenial. The fat rewards and business travel arrangements start to become jaded. Shapland deserves credit for recognising his limits.