Many bankers are still unwilling to hold their hands up

Leading chief executives and chairmen of the big four banks reckon that it could take years before bank workers feel proud of their job again and Antonio Simoes, chief executive of HSBC Bank, said that “the public trust might take a generation to re-establish”.

They were speaking at the inaugural annual conference of the Banking Standards Board, the independent body that was set up last year to promote higher standards of behaviour in banking after the PPI, rate rigging and money laundering scandals eroded public trust in UK banks.

Over 30 lenders, including the big four – HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and Lloyds (which bought the Halifax at the height of the banking crisis) – have signed up in a bid to clear up their act. Sir Gerry Grimstone, deputy chairman of Barclays, warned that there are still a lot of legacy issues.

“The drumbeat of the fines will go on for a couple of years,” he said.

Our children will grow up and listen incredulously to tales of exactly how badly the banks behaved and wonder how they got away with it.

At the conference, Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: “We are still suffering with really profound consequences from what happened in 2008.”

He added that too many people now approach their banks with some trepidation and until they believe their bank will do the right thing of its own accord rather than doing it because of legislation, they won’t trust it.

He pointed out that there is no way we’d put up with our supermarkets only behaving themselves because they’d been ordered to by the regulators, yet that’s exactly how we behave with our banks.

In 2011 the former chief executive of Barclays Bob Diamond said the time for remorse was over, yet it’s far from over.

As Sir Gerry told the conference: “It’s completely reasonable that people feel a strong visceral anger. Of course it’s right and proper that banks should be punished.”

He added that over £50bn in fines has been paid out by the big four banks since the various scandals came to light.

“There is a palpable sense that the people who perpetrated this have not been brought to account.

“They should be dismissed from the city,” he said.

He makes a good point. The recent report into the failure and collapse of Halifax Bank of Scotland concluded that up to 10 former HBOS executives could be banned from ever working in financial services again.

But so what?

The report ​targeted Andy Hornby, the CEO of HBOS at the time of its collapse in 2008, and former chairman, Lord Stevenson, who both work outside the banking sector now.

Mr Hornby, currently chief executive of the bookmakers Coral, would probably rather chew off his right arm than go back into banking, so it’s hardly a penance.

The question for the new banking bosses (who were all far removed from the 2008 banking scandal) is can they really change the culture?

It emerged this week that new rules to hold bosses responsible for wrongdoing at banks is deterring some bankers from taking on senior management roles and even prompting big-hitters to play down their own importance.

Ron Gould, a former UK regulator, said some senior bankers are looking at whether they can convince regulators they did not have significant managerial influence over their teams.

“One thing I have seen that does make me smile is the wonderful term used by some firms that want to ‘juniorise’ positions,” he said.

Eight years on from the crisis, it seems that some bankers are still unwilling to take responsibility for their own wrongdoing.