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The quality needed for a successful banker is greed. Greed for their Bank and greed for themselves. Can you have one without the other?

It is up to the regulators to make sure the level of risk (in all its forms) does not destabilise the financial market. Beyond that, the public need to be reminded of the adage, 'high rewards usually come from high risks'.

In your main article about this on the Beeb site you are quoted:

"成人论坛 business editor Robert Peston said the implication of Mr Sants' position "will be a pretty steep reduction in the amount of credit available and the cost of it"."

Did you really mean a reduction in the cost of credit? I would have drawn the opposite inference from Sants comments - reduction in the amount of credit and INCREASE in the cost of it.

These bonuses, if they are allowed to continue at all, should be held in trust and only paid out after, say, 10 years or so have elapsed. During that time the banks can claw back any losses from this money pot rather than me, the taxpayer.

Robert
This is not a tabloid journal and you are not a tablid journalist. Your reputation is done no favours when you paraphrase interviewees and insist on using perjorative terms :"dodgy loans" and innuendo : "received a bob or three in bonuses". Why not try and build a reputation for accurate reliable journalism rather than "breaking stories" that are little more than the dreaded "spin" of old? The FSA chief exec gave a sober and calm analysis of the future of the banking secondaries market - he said it would be tighter - that's all.

"But if shareholders fail to act, so be it. He believes it would not be appropriate for the FSA to intervene in a commercial, competitive issue of this sort."

Ok then. But if the banks start going down the pan as a result of the reckless greed of these bankers, then "so be it". However make the same bankers liable for the losses and not the taxpayer please.

I'm not working my socks off as a taxpayer to cover their losses, but see them run off with the profits.

The level of bonuses and the alignment of their awarding is a problem, sure. But equally problematic is the kind of person that their recruitment processes are designed to attract.

They don't hire 'the best' they hire the most like 'an investment banker' (which is rhyming slang for a reason).

The best for the business will be turned away as having the wrong characteristics, as the characteristics that are sought are the ones most aligned with short-termism: selfishness, greed, an almost psychopathic lack of empathy, ruthlessness and dishonesty.

Sant's comments about "banks would never again be able to raise as much money as cheaply as they had been doing by selling off their loans" is nonsense.
This might well apply to UK banking institutions, but certainly not on the Continent.
Since this "credit crisis", in the 3 months Oct-Dec07, Spanish banks alone have raised over $41 billion (Yes, Billion !) via securitising their residential loans.

The only problem is however, is that these haven't been placed with end buyers (investors), but have been used as collateral for ECB repo purposes.
So, effectively the European Central Bank is the buyer of last resort (ie, thats you and me as taxpayers), and banks do not have to find "real" buyers for the securitised transactions they are STILL continuing to churn out.

Please bear in mind the banks exist as an entity of our creation.
Without our money they would not exist or have found the leverage to exist and grow.
When they gamble carelessly it is with our money.
Short-termism is a plague of the corporate world. Too often performance bonuses are based on the here and now at the expense of the future. If the average career of an executive is only 18 months, they are keen to earn a lifetimes income in that 18 months and will risk the long term future of the business for personal benefit. It has been like this for decades, it has been known for decades, yet goverment has consistently failed to act against it.
I recall being told by the then finance director at the Boots company before the millenium claiming they were going to increase profit by 5% every year and that very morning this statement had been made to the stock exchange.
This asperation lasted 1 year before it failed, and everyone working for the company at that time knew it was impossible to achieve. The claims were meant to bolster share prices to re-value their maturing share options.
A case in point.

Regulating pay is extraordinarily difficult; at some point there has to be the incentive to do well, be entreprenuerial or inventive. That's why some of us suffer longer (at our own expense) in education to help us to do well in the future, or spend long hours working. It should be borne in mind that the FSA already requires compensation to be linked to performance, however it's performance over what is the question. It's the FSA's responsibility to protect consumers and ensure market stability. Is the FSA saying that actually, it doesn't have the resources to do either of those things effectively? And is this is the reason why Banks can go off and create complicated products in complicated structures (either onshore or offshore) which have the risk of causing financial meltdown? That is, there's nothing really to stop them? No penalty? No-one to haul them up and say "whoa boy, what on earth are you up to?" The idea that shareholders intervene in setting staff pay is pretty nuts, actually. Are shareholders meant to agree the annual budget? Are shareholders representatives going to review company strategy in detail? Should shareholders review employment agreements to make sure the bonus provisions are not too generous? What should the cap be? How much is too much? Is a million too much, because that's what Ron Sandler's being paid in Northern Rock? Shareholders are responsbile for setting directors pay and the directors set the strategy and run the business. Hammer the directors then? So who'll want to be one? Already, finding non-executives is getting harder because of the codification of responsibilities in new Companies legislation. Maybe the FSA needs to take a keener interest in understanding precisely what its licencees are up to and pulling them up when appropriate. You know what, that might be a good start.

The bonus issue is certainly a very visible one which causes deep resentment and annoyance but it is really only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to examining the strategic damage the financial services sector has done to the UK economy.

Another perhaps more important example is that when asked why it was that the USA despite all its other problems was still top of the competititiveness league tables the Chief Economist of the World Economic Forum said - amongst other things - that it was because it has "a financial sector that supplies the needed capital for risky innovation ventures."

In the UK almost the opposite applies and our financial services sector seems almost proud of that.

What about the role of the rating agencies, and the investors in all these asset backed securities?

"Buyer beware" has long been the unofficial motto of the city. This is not some greedy banker's way of shrugging off investor concerns, it is an inescapable fact of life.

If you are not an expert investor, then you have to pay somebody to assess your investments for you. However what happened here was that investors relied on rating agencies, who were paid to rate these instruments by the banks who created them. In fact the banks and the agencies openly co-operated to find common models for assessing the risks.

This sort of debacle is only going to stop happening when the regulators forget their obsession with transparency and disclosure (which is useless to non-experts anyway), and start acting to prevent this kind of conflict of interests where the so-called "independent" experts are really just marketing arms of the investment banks. The same goes for IFAs in the retail market.

Having said that, the remuneration structure in the financial services industry does not exactly encourage prudence - but I think it was only a secondary contributory factor here.

It has been transparently obvious ofr the last 20 years that the reward system in banks was inconsistent with the role of banks at the heart of a country's economic life. It could be argued that it was ok whilst it was confined to the investment banking comunity. However with the advent of Big Bang commercial bankers were exposed to the rewards of their investment banking briothers and wanted to share in it. Lenders were rewarded for increasing revenues. Then the check and balance of the credit department wanted a slice and that was where the problem really started. Either you rewarded your credit people competitively and paid them bonuses or you got dullards. In either event you did not reinforce the fundamental requirement of a credit officer that a bank's greatest asset is its long-term stability. As you sow so shall you reap.

Robert. Interesting post and, as a shareholder of many UK banks, I am perpetually appalled at the method by which senior bankers are incentivised.

However, I'm going to surprise myself here and put up a fight on behalf of the Private Equity industry. For all its ills you can at least say that PE bosses are remunerated on genuine, long-term performance. A new employee in a PE house might have to wait over 5 years for new funds to close before he or she starts to see really juicy bonuses.

This is just flannel from Sants. There are two ways to remove the unfair and asymmetric advantage that bankers have - where they get paid bonuses in good years and give nothing back if their activities lead to big losses (indeed we, as taxpayers, get to cover the loss). The first is to ban cash bonuses, or force them to be paid in deferred stock with some kind of clawback mechanism. The second is explicitly to remove the state's support for banks when they get into trouble. Unless and until this is done (and Sants's comments suggest that little will change) the bankers will have an incentive to loot the system time and time again, one they will undoubtedly exploit.

Regulating pay is extraordinarily difficult; at some point there has to be the incentive to do well, be entreprenuerial or inventive. That's why some of us suffer longer (at our own expense) in education to help us to do well in the future, or spend long hours working. It should be borne in mind that the FSA already requires compensation to be linked to performance, however it's performance over what is the question. It's the FSA's responsibility to protect consumers and ensure market stability. Is the FSA saying that actually, it doesn't have the resources to do either of those things effectively? And is this is the reason why Banks can go off and create complicated products in complicated structures (either onshore or offshore) which have the risk of causing financial meltdown? That is, there's nothing really to stop them? No penalty? No-one to haul them up and say "whoa boy, what on earth are you up to?" The idea that shareholders intervene in setting staff pay is pretty nuts, actually. Are shareholders meant to agree the annual budget? Are shareholders representatives going to review company strategy in detail? Should shareholders review employment agreements to make sure the bonus provisions are not too generous? What should the cap be? How much is too much? Is a million too much, because that's what Ron Sandler's being paid in Northern Rock? Shareholders are responsbile for setting directors pay and the directors set the strategy and run the business. Hammer the directors then? So who'll want to be one? Already, finding non-executives is getting harder because of the codification of responsibilities in new Companies legislation. Maybe the FSA needs to take a keener interest in understanding precisely what its licencees are up to and pulling them up when appropriate. You know what, that might be a good start.

The FSA is supposed to 'REGULATE' but this 'credit crunch' shows they have been either sleeping on the job or turning a blind eye to their 'friends' in the banking community.
Robert, you have been commentating on the toxic loan situations since before the middle of last year, yet the FSA has only now got round to saying something while Northern Rock 'flounders on the rocks' and many other banks (?) have gambled away with no one overseeing what they are doing.

Mr Sants and the FSA say "it would not be appropriate for the FSA to intervene in a commercial, competitive issue", yet right now there are proposals a foot to allow the banks to sell financial products with little or no advice and NO regulation or Ombudsman protection for the customers.

What we need is the FSA to REGULATE not manipulate the market place !!

How can anyone believe what the FSA says any more? Equitable Life, Split Caps, Endowments, Pension mis-selling, Northern Crock....Oh yes they have caught a few dodgy small businesses but have fundamentally failed to pre-empt these big crises.
The FSA has a fundamental inability to understand how financial businesses and markets work - so tied up is it with rules and their rigid application. (In a attempt to get an asset manager authorised, I was asked what a "drawdown" was.)
Still it's a good career route to getting yourself bought out by an investment bank or even an OBE! Plus ca change...

It is all very well for Hector and the FSA to cry stop now but it is about ten years too late. The damage has already been done and we are, and will for a long time, live with the consequences of greed and irresponsibility. The whole bonus culture is a sham: these so-called clever bankers have merely moved money - mostly ours - around and around and each time clocked up a " virtual deal" resulting in reward bonuses. How sustainable is that?
This institutional lack of ability is now coming to light as the banks become squeezed because they have failed to create real, profitable business. Their only way to make profits was to scam their customers with fees, charges and penalties.

There does appear to be a strong argument for regulation: the price is ultimately paid by those of us living a "normal" lifestyle in terms of higher costs and possible serious financial implications for our future: surely the needs and well-being of the many outweigh the greed of the few.

Good job pointing out that Sants was a beneficiary of the City's largesse before he became a critic of it.

But other two points here that I think are worth making:

1) Even if myopia is a problem at banks, it is encouraged by the current shareholder system that obsesses over the next quarterly results. You can try blaming banks' management for paying their stars for short-term perfomance, but investors' expectations are such that the management has to focus on near-term results.

I'm not trying to absolve banks' management, I'm just saying that lectures on myopia might be even more deservedly directed at the investor community.

2) The problem in as far as subprime is concerned, is a problem of skewed incentives all the way through the mortgage supply chain when it came to evaluating credit risk. (I should add, this was an exponentially bigger problem in the USA than it has been here under the FSA's mortgage regulation regime.) For years understanding credit quality was no-one's problem, now it is everyone's problem (Cue the government to the rescue).

So I think focusing on astronomical city salaries happens to be a little beside the point; the key issue is why markets don't identify skewed incentives until after the event.

Again, this is not to absolve banks' management, but investors surely need to clue-in to the type of firms they are doing business with. Firms that pay their employees vast sums of money to sell securities... Res ipsa loquitur.

your best paid should no longer be traders, but risk managers. how much value does a solid risk management team lock in vs the latest deal-of-the-month trader. The FSA should also have a think-tank on the latest products on the market and monte carlo some worse-case scenarios. SIVs, CDO of CDOs should have been looked at. They should also help in assimilating accurate market data to measure this stuff - sourcing mkt prices on illiquids has been a real issue in accurate/timely exposure reporting

The FSA is supposed to 'REGULATE' but this 'credit crunch' shows they have been either sleeping on the job or turning a blind eye to their 'friends' in the banking community.
Robert, you have been commentating on the toxic loan situations since before the middle of last year, yet the FSA has only now got round to saying something while Northern Rock 'flounders on the rocks' and many other banks (?) have gambled away with no one overseeing what they are doing.

Mr Sants and the FSA say "it would not be appropriate for the FSA to intervene in a commercial, competitive issue", yet right now there are proposals a foot to allow the banks to sell financial products with little or no advice and NO regulation or Ombudsman protection for the customers! How crazy is that? The very people who get the most complaints will be able to sell financial products with no consumer protection for the customers!!

What we need is the FSA to REGULATE not manipulate the market place!!

Good on you Hector! But are these just good words? You're telling us what we want to hear,but is anything really going to change? I have my doubts. A quiet pat on the head, a little feigned contrition and then it'll be back to the old ways. It has always been thus.
But are you made of sterner stuff Hector? Can you change the selfish, inward looking culture that pervades our financial institutions? Can you restore a sense of responsibility and accountability into the gambling den that is the City of London? Have you got the bottle to attack the City's "Spanish practices"?
Many thousands of people's lives are about to be devestated by the greed and crass stupidity of bankers. The fact that this has been allowed to happen is beyond comprehension and is a total disgrace.
As for the humongous bonuses...rewarding exceptional talent is perfectly acceptable and sensible, but dishing out indecent wads of dosh to competent worker bees who just happen to be there is indefensible.
Hector, in case you haven't noticed, things have changed. We can see in. You need to be the catalyst of real and lasting change. Can you deliver?

A 鈥渟ound ticking off for the City鈥�? You think the City cares what Hector says? Since the debacle of Philippe Jabre and L&G, I don鈥檛 think there will be too many worries about what the FSA think.

The FSA is - as ever - a paper tiger.

When bankers do well on the high wire they take home stellar bonuses. When they fail, the state's trampoline kicks in to lend them a comfy landing.

Remove the state trampoline and you instantly have cautious bankers. Simple and easy market forces, not this weird "capitalism for the poor, socialism for the rich" hybrid banking system we currently have in the UK.

To put it another way and in much simpler terms, you cannot have lax regulation AND a backup safety net in place.

It simply doesn't work and Sants should have learned that by now.

what a lot of pointless posturing! Regulate to cut City bonusses and you'll see a far bigger departure of talent overseas than any nom-dom tax could cause.
Simple answer is to pay in shares as well as cash.

The proceeds of their criminal acts should be tracked down worlwide and given back at least.
When there's some accountability built into the system then we may get leaders of some integrity AND skill, after all at present they've got nothing to lose and everything to gain for just being in such elevated posts

no risk, no reward.

The banking businesses which have created this situation have been allowed a pretty free reign because they were seen as the UK's prime economic engine. Uniquely in the world they did not see funding industry or manfuacturing enterprise as an important part of their job, but merely creating more money from old.
Those of us who long believed that the best thing for the country would be the sinking of the city financiers under the Thames may be forgiven for some shadenfreude here.
A related problem is that unlike manufacturing industry, where wealth trickled down to everybody and made us all richer, the wealth supposedly created in finance has largely missed out whole classes of the UK and led to much of the country suffering enormous decliens in their living standards. Since it is largely our money that they are gambling with, should this be permitted?
But the real question is whether the magic money-go-round has genuinely kept us high in the economic league table or whether this is simply a mirage created by smoke and mirrors. When the money bubble collapses, are we left with anything tangible to pay our way with in the world?
Or must we rely on the clever fools in the city inventing another fancy scheme to pick the pockets of the world's investors?

Keeping in mind NR, UBS, SG, ML, Citibank et al, what is it exactly that top banking executives do and what do they actually know about their business to make them worth seven figures: can they describe with acuracy and detail operations of their credit departments? or that of their off-balance sheet transactions? I thought not.

What they do know is that can all be left to the front-middle-back office where the avergage wage is less than that of a starting graduate's.

Are they ever at their office, managing their business? I thought not either. That is left to management support who are paid more than back office, but less than front office.

Top executive pay and corporate governance is a sham. Now would you get Hector Sants to admit to that?

The so-called 'regulatory light touch' that London offers banks makes me wonder - how many European banks have succumbed to problems over financial instruments based on sub-prime debt?

Credit and speculation go hand in hand and always have. Karl Marx pointed this out 150 years ago in his analysis of the banking crises of 1847 and 1857. You can blame individuals, lapse regulation, rogue banks and so on but the problem is the very nature of credit itself and its role in the capitalist economy. Money traders earn huge bonuses by risking other people's money, no one criticises until the losses occur.(Chapter 27, volume three of capital).

In spite of being one of the worlds most expensive and intrusive regulators, The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has admitted that inadequate supervisory practices were partly to blame for the Northern Rock liquidity crisis.

Maybe the FSA overlooked the regulations of banks because the FSA itself is top heavy with former bankers!

The FSA intends to conduct a review of 鈥渋tself鈥� following the Northern Rock crisis and examine its risk assessment and mitigation practices.

Question: In view of the 110 Billion projected cost of this failure would it not be appropriate for the review to be independent of the FSA? After all the FSA has a reputation for apppointing external consultants!

Is it right that large clearing banks or any institution that has access to cheap funding (customer deposits) are allowed to go head-to-head in the riskier world of "investment banking" with genuine investment banks (such as Goldman's, Merrill's Bear Stearns) who have a higher cost of funding? It is not a level playing field especially if you consider that commerical banks will likely be "bailed out" by the central bank due to the customer deposit base. The investment banking divisions should be seperate legal entities (non-recourse to where deposits are held).

Surely the best way of making sure that bankers and other employees have the long term health of their companies in mind is to revise the share options that they get allocated. For instance if the payoff was based on the average monthly share price over a 3 or 5 year period (asian style), then they have to be focussed on long term gain rather than always aiming for the next year.

Afterall if the share were consistently high over that period, then the reward is deserved.

Paul #26 is spot on. Mr Sants is about 3 years too late in critising bonuses. He's just playing to the galleries.

The only way that we are going to see the people who caused this mess brought to book is with some very long prison sentences. In due course, I'm sure the US will get around to it because we sure as hell won't. I, for one, won't shed a tear when the extradition requests start arriving.

The FSA has always been gutless; as regards this family it came to a head when Equitable Life's collapse was totally ignored by the FSA. The FSA has never seen what's coming, and they're always surprised raising an eyebrow or two, nothing more when the likes of Northern Rock collapse.

Well said Tony #30!

You need to go further though. We need to spot and stamp out disasters before they happen. Next up are universities. They receive a mixture of public and private funding yet are essentially private enterprises. They are borrowing like there is no tomorrow. New building sir? Certainly, are you sure you don't want two?
Graduates will pay for them.
And what will they be doing to earn their corn?
Playing computer games just like everybody else in employment.
Employees have now been empowered so much by computers that they would be hard pressed to determine which is the harder task: Work or game playing at home.

Who will be liable for the universities' debts when they find that they cannot afford to pay for the shiny new buildings? That's right, the taxpayer.
But these universities are private companies? Only when it suits them. Only when they have their hands out collecting grants and EU subsidies.

On reading these posts I never quite seem to understand why everyone has so much criticism against bonuses. I agree some of the staff e.g. chief executives are over paid. However, a typical manager is not. Alot of staff work hard and put in a lot of overtime to earn that bonus and too are taxpayers. So many people criticise charges, how many times do you see the public complaining about paying for clothes, shoes, football tops etc? very rarely. The retail market are just as bad, they charge you 拢70 for trainers that cost about 拢5 to make in a 3rd world country. I agree customers should be charged for defaulting on their account however I also agree the charges should be a lot less than they currently are.

4. At 08:50 AM on 27 Feb 2008, John wrote:
Robert
''This is not a tabloid journal and you are not a tablid journalist. Your reputation is done no favours when you paraphrase interviewees and insist on using perjorative terms :"dodgy loans" and innuendo : "received a bob or three in bonuses". Why not try and build a reputation for accurate reliable journalism rather than "breaking stories" that are little more than the dreaded "spin" of old? The FSA chief exec gave a sober and calm analysis of the future of the banking secondaries market - he said it would be tighter - that's all.''

**

Get a grip!

This is a blog! Not News At 10. Robert has an unchallengable right to his opinions here here and as a financial journalist I'd sooner believe him than the FSA chairman.

Robert is not paid to give a particular spin on things but the FSA chairman is - and by the banking industry themselves - or am I missing something here?

The FSA are a wholly discredited organisation and for their 'light touch' regulatory approach, read 'no touch'.

Hi

Bonuses are geared to drive and encourage managers to ultimately provide returns for shareholders. Shareholders demand an increase in profits each quarterly reporting cycle - so by default the requirements to report quarterly have meant a sharp move to targeting bonuses to short term growth. I have seen this over the past 10 years as the internal business planning by each business has moved from 10 years, to five years, to 3 years and now in some cases yearly. Its all now, now, now and not "let's build something for the future" - a bit like society and politics.

Bankers have no more intellectual capacity than the average graduate. Their salaries are massive and bear no relation to their talent. Why do they get any bonus at all - surely their huge salary is reward enough?

Read Epicurean Dealmaker for his take on this. Yes, bankers' pay is extortionate, but shareholders hire management who run the business like this... noone complains when they make money

I cannot believe that the banking profession (sic) could actually believe that big 'fat cat' bonuses would be conducive to long term success.

All too often, we read of 'stars' being poached by other banking groups, just after they have trousered their bonuses...........

I work in financial services, on a primarily salaried basis. If I do well, there is a bonus element to the success, that is paid out quarterly in arrears.....but half of what has been earned by way of bonus is retained until the end of the year, and then what is left within the bonus pool is released. This means that I were to receive a bonus for Q1, and Q2 [say] was not a success, then success is Q1 is offset by a poor Q2, etc...........I find that fairer, and neither my employers or I have any nasty surprises later on.

These bankers are also protected by having a nice comfortable pension. Most of these bonuses come out of the private sector pension schemes whose return is appalling by the time they have taken there share of the equity, even if they make a loss for the fund they still get there cut.
More hated than Estate Agents

It is the lack of a 'real' independant watchdog or regulatory authority which is the problem.

The FSA, Bank of England etc are controlled by the same people who have already made their fat cat fortunes or are 'friends' of those in the financial services institutions.

The first government to appoint people to positions of authority and power, who are not or have not been part of the industry they are meant to be regulating, will be taking the first step to cleaning up this rotten and corrupt mess.

Yet again the FSA shows how spineless it is in the face of the industry it is supposed to be regulating.

Anyone with any financial nous beyond primary education level would have seen the downside of the type of products that have led to the current credit crisis.
I'm not naive enough to believe that the banks would ever stop creating these dubious financial instruments, but rather than strictly monitor the products, banks have been happy to turn a blind eye and award massive bonuses as long as they saw the bottom line contribution to profits.
The FSA just let them do it.

Every body moans about bankers' salaries. It is just sour grapes. Bankers work very long hours (30% more than the average week) under extreme pressure. Their salaries are modest compared to what footballers in the premiership are earning. Why don't we target them instead.

FSA's shifting of burden to shareholders of the bank to fix(rather curtail) the banker's remuneration cannot be supported as it would be too much to ask from that shareholders who are generally and naturally shortsighted and a substantial part of them lack technical knowledge.They would be interested in short term large gain, for which they are undoubtedly dependant upon the investment bankers.So,the shareholders will not think to cut the goose which is providing them gold eggs.It is high time for the FSA to involve itself in real business rather commenting and setting theories in response to financial crisis like the present one.

It makes a nice change to read that the leader of the city watchdogs is now saying that the city is in an economic mess because the the people who work there are both foolish and greedy.

Recent events in the money markets have confirmed that these so called whizz kids are not commercially astute people with sound business plans. The present credit crunch is the culmination of years of gross miss-mamgement and deception by greedy people who, it has been proven, are deficient in ethical values and score lowly in honesty, loyalty and self-discipline.

These people have a "Del Boy" attitude when it comes to business dealings. They are only interested in making a quick buck by selling as many dodgy goods as possible in the shortest time and then moving on before they are found out.

Paying such people large bonus payments on spurious claims of achievement simply encourages them to behave ever more recklessly and then make widely exagerrated claims about their importance.

Banker's dogma is to 'cover their back' and thus hopefully that of their employer.
However every 20 years or so the latest wave of 25 to 45 old bankers falls into the trap of lending like crazy against property,which in turn inflates values out of all proportion. They haven't had the shirt on their back before.
To make matters worse bankers are incapable of making a business decision to call such artificial growth to a halt, because they are programmed to work to the book. On top of that that are are all integrated into a layered commission earning structure which drives income from the top to the bottom.
So lending against property,plus commission, plus low interest rates
leads to lemming like culture. Doesn't inspire does it? It will happen again to the next lot just as before.

Bankers rhymes with......enough said.