(26 June 2012 – Australia) Former chief risk officer at ANZ, Christopher Page has blamed public dislike of bankers on the industry’s culture of greed and failure to look after customers’ interests.”Why do people hate the banks? Because we have broken their trust. We have not looked after our customers’ interests,” he told a gathering at the University of Melbourne.
”A lot of organisations now are too inwardly focused, too worried about internal politics and the rate of return.”
Page said the industry was still repairing the damage done to its reputation as a result of its behaviour during the GFC.
”That trust was broken and that trust is not being repaired – and it probably will take more than the rest of my life for that trust to be restored.”
Page also blasted executives’ obsession with large bonuses: ”I reckon if you go to most meetings [within banks], there will be very few conversations about customers. They will be a lot about what is in the bonus pool and how we divide it, but not on customers.”