Bankers wear shame as a badge of honour

Of all the proposals to ‘force’ banks to reduce punitive variable interest rates, the most comically laughable is the proposal to ‘name and shame’.

It is based on the completely erroneous belief that banks have any shame to begin with. If they did, they would humbly remind themselves that many of them still exist thanks only to the involuntary generosity of the public who bailed them out to the tune of billions when the banks lost the run of themselves and the regulator was asleep at the wheel.

Nor would they continue to brazenly charge interest rates up to 20 times that of the ECB at its lowest levels. In reality, any such lists would be worn as a badge of honour and produced at shareholder meetings to prove the banks’ dedication to the bottom line.