By Agency Reporter

Friday, 24 Dec 2010

LONDON: Banks have made mistakes but have learned from the financial crisis, the new Barclays boss, Mr. Bob Diamond has said.

Diamond, who becomes Chief Executive of Barclays in the new year, claimed banks had changed the way they do business, according to a Sky News report on Thursday.

He was asked at Jeff Randall‘s Christmas Dinner whether the industry would be seeking redemption in 2011 after spending so much time in the firing line.

”Banks have made mistakes and bankers have made mistakes, I know I’ve made mistakes,” he admitted.

”We’ve changed the way we do business, there’s higher levels of capital for example, lower leverage and I think we have to be very, very careful as we move forward to also focus on the other side, which is jobs and economic growth.”

”We‘ve all learned a lot from the financial crisis and it is more than a banking crisis, it really is.”

The thorny issue of bonuses was raised at Jeff Randall‘s Xmas Dinner easyJet‘s chief executive, Mrs. Carolyn McCall, and Mr. Sir Stuart Rose also shared lessons they had learned from the financial crisis.

On the issue of how much leaders at the top are portrayed sometimes in the media the M&S Chairman remarked, ”We have a situation particularly in the press where somebody makes good and immediately they become a target.

”Well I don‘t think that is very healthy.”

McCall, who was until recently boss at the Guardian Media Group and earns an executive salary herself, defended the right to reveal fat-cat salaries.

”You can‘t vilify business but business also has to be responsible and has got to be aware of what‘s going on in the wider world,” she said.

”Now you may not like it, I didn‘t like it sometimes, on the other hand if things are wrong in society it is necessary because actually some of the excesses of corporate Britain needed to be revealed.”

Rose, who will step down as M&S Chairman in 2011, added: ”There is probably time for us to reflect, just as Bob has said, on what‘s happened over the last couple of years and say to ourselves what is the right distribution.”

”Should a boss earn 500 times more than the lowest paid employee, 100 times more, 250 times more? What is the right balance?”

The Barclays boss remarked, ”I think we all have a responsibility to do a better job of explaining how we contribute to jobs and economic growth and how we contribute to a better society.”

 

Source: Punch