Almost six thousand bankers, brokers and financial advisers in Britain have been sacked or suspended for dishonest or reckless conduct since the start of the financial crisis.
Figures extracted from the Financial Conduct Authority under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that Britishbased banks and other authorised financial firms have forced out 5,873 rogue managers and staff since 2008 — which amounts to almost three every day for the past six years.
While the expulsion rate last year was down from 2012, when the Libor cheating scandal erupted, it is still higher than at the start of the financial crisis.
With 150,000 people in Britain now working in authorised roles in financial services, the figures show that one in 160 of them was booted out for wrongdoing last year. That is worse than the figure of one in 210 expelled in 2008.
Brooks Newmark, a Tory member of the Treasury Select Committee, said that the numbers were disappointing. “Given the opprobrium thrown at the banking community over the past five years, you’d think they’d be extra careful. The message isn’t getting through. Where is their moral compass?”
Danielle Paffard, co-founder of the Move Your Money campaign, said: “This is a huge number. It underlines how broken and dishonest the banking industry still is.”
Employers in financial services have to tell the FCA when someone is dismissed or suspended over wrongdoing considered to impinge on their fitness to work in finance, filling in a “qualified Form C” notice, which alerts regulators that the employee may not be suitable for City roles. Qualified Form C notices were issued in 939 cases last year, down from 1,373 in 2012, but up on the 803 in 2008. Over six years the average number of notices per year has been 979.
Kirsty Ayre, a partner with City lawyers Pinsent Masons, which gathered the data, said the offences ranged from the most serious, such as Libor offences, to the seemingly trivial, such as lying about having seen a document.
She said that the high numbers were partly down to banks wanting to be tougher in stamping out dishonesty: “People are keener to get rid of bad apples. I don’t think this is evidence of any increased malpractice.”
The numbers come on the eve of the bank reporting season, when the biggest banks are expected to reveal even higher costs of mis-selling scandals such as payment protection insurance.
The bill for mis-sold PPI has reached £22 billion after Lloyds last week increased its estimate of the cost to it alone to £9.8 billion. Barclays is expected tomorrow to unveil a drop of about £1.5 billion in annual profit to £5.5 billion, mainly because of redress over a string of scandals.
Tomorrow Sir Richard Lambert, the former Director-General of the CBI, is due to publish a report on the creation of a professional body to champion higher standards and qualifications in banking. The Parliamentary Banking Standards Commission has already recommended a new system for approving senior bankers, and the Government has agreed to introduce legislation that could pave the way for reckless senior bankers to be jailed.
There are growing concerns that investigations into the manipulation of foreign exchange rates could be the next scandal to convulse the industry.
While the expulsion rate last year was down from 2012, when the Libor cheating scandal erupted, it is still higher than at the start of the financial crisis.
With 150,000 people in Britain now working in authorised roles in financial services, the figures show that one in 160 of them was booted out for wrongdoing last year. That is worse than the figure of one in 210 expelled in 2008.
Brooks Newmark, a Tory member of the Treasury Select Committee, said that the numbers were disappointing. “Given the opprobrium thrown at the banking community over the past five years, you’d think they’d be extra careful. The message isn’t getting through. Where is their moral compass?”
Danielle Paffard, co-founder of the Move Your Money campaign, said: “This is a huge number. It underlines how broken and dishonest the banking industry still is.”
Employers in financial services have to tell the FCA when someone is dismissed or suspended over wrongdoing considered to impinge on their fitness to work in finance, filling in a “qualified Form C” notice, which alerts regulators that the employee may not be suitable for City roles. Qualified Form C notices were issued in 939 cases last year, down from 1,373 in 2012, but up on the 803 in 2008. Over six years the average number of notices per year has been 979.
Kirsty Ayre, a partner with City lawyers Pinsent Masons, which gathered the data, said the offences ranged from the most serious, such as Libor offences, to the seemingly trivial, such as lying about having seen a document.
She said that the high numbers were partly down to banks wanting to be tougher in stamping out dishonesty: “People are keener to get rid of bad apples. I don’t think this is evidence of any increased malpractice.”
The numbers come on the eve of the bank reporting season, when the biggest banks are expected to reveal even higher costs of mis-selling scandals such as payment protection insurance.
The bill for mis-sold PPI has reached £22 billion after Lloyds last week increased its estimate of the cost to it alone to £9.8 billion. Barclays is expected tomorrow to unveil a drop of about £1.5 billion in annual profit to £5.5 billion, mainly because of redress over a string of scandals.
Tomorrow Sir Richard Lambert, the former Director-General of the CBI, is due to publish a report on the creation of a professional body to champion higher standards and qualifications in banking. The Parliamentary Banking Standards Commission has already recommended a new system for approving senior bankers, and the Government has agreed to introduce legislation that could pave the way for reckless senior bankers to be jailed.
There are growing concerns that investigations into the manipulation of foreign exchange rates could be the next scandal to convulse the industry.
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