"A mutual trust between client and bank was once the foundation of our financial system - we need to get it back"

I never know what to think of posts like this, but it did make me think of Rod Dreher. William Rees-Mogg in The Times:

"The bank manager then occupied a similar position to the family solicitor or the family doctor. He hoped to maintain a long-term relationship with each client and he hoped that this relationship would survive for generations. He would offer general financial advice, and was concerned to keep the interest of the client and the bank in alignment.

He did not lend the bank's money to people he thought might be unable to repay it. That would plainly be against the interests of the client as well as of the bank. He would, however, try to find a way of meeting the needs of vulnerable groups, including students - which I then was - widows and businesses under trading pressures. The customer who failed was seen as a failure for the bank, because it would be regarded as a lack of banking competence. The customer who built up a successful business would also be a good advertisement for the bank.

Banks were there to help their clients and to keep them out of trouble. "

I have to admit that I like this banker:

"Where relationship banking still survives, there have been relatively few problems of bad debts. The problems have arisen in transactional and unsecured credit card banking with one-off or completely unknown customers. Of course the customers have often behaved badly; if a bank does not know its customers, who are only blips on a computer screen, some of them will behave badly. The bank only has itself to blame...

The decline of moral responsibility has damaged British banks; it is the real flaw behind the credit crisis. There will be new regulation of the world's banking system after the crisis. Governments cannot risk another catastrophe on this scale. The banks need to change their behaviour. They need to re-establish relations with their clients and value experience in their staff. They need to beware of American-style, high-risk, high-return, policies. British banking was based on protecting the client's interest as well as the bank's. Bankers should not be ashamed of their Victorian heritage."

I don't quite see things this way, as I wonder if this bank would have lent money to my family. Nevertheless, there's something to be said for the sentiment, even if it is an idealization.