Sants Fights His Corner

The embattled CEO of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), Hector Sants, fought his corner on BBC radio this morning.

In response to criticisms that the FSA's new remuneration code is too soft on bankers, he stated that politicians have "ducked" the issue and have passed "the buck to the FSA".

He quite correctly noted that the FSA was not set up to take a "moral view" on the scale of payouts. However, its role is to ensure that pay packages did not encourage inappropriate risk-taking.

He also, rather wisely, noted that it was "reasonable" for the government, as a shareholder in some institutions (ie Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds) to set parameters on how the companies were run. Thereby neatly reminding the government that, at least in those two cases, they really are in charge and do have a say.

Doubtless that suggestion will fall on deaf ears, as the government would very much like to pretend that it has no control over these two institutions; to admit that it does would mean that it would be blamed for the poor results.

Demonising bankers is all very well. However, like it or not, the country needs banks and bankers in order to function.

Short of returning to a primitive barter society, we will have to continue to endure seeing a handful of people making large sums of money for apparently doing very little.