This suggests fiduciary concerns still may not course through the banking bloodstream as freely and easily as would be ideal. They help explain why that Great Divide remains so wide. The Bank of England itself has an important role to play in this public education effort. Decisions made on interest rates in the economy and on credit provision by banks have an important bearing on the general public’s financial decision-making. To that end, one of the Bank’s strategic priorities over the next few years is to increase public awareness of the Bank’s thinking and actions, using new methods such as videos, cartoons and social media, to help the general public’s financial decision-making. 41  For more details on the Open University’s ‘You and your money: personal finance in context’ modules see http://www.open.ac.uk/courses/modules/db123. 42  For example, Zingales (2015). 43  For further details, please see https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-wants-banks-to-work-harder-fortheir-customers. 44  For further details, please see http://www.fasterpayments.org.uk/about-us/. 10  BIS central bankers’ speeches  (b)  Creating “purpose” in banking  Regulation and education can only take us so far. Culture cannot be regulated or educated; it has to be inculcated among financial firms themselves. As social identity theory reminds us, it is the sociology and psychology of banking and bankers that needs to change, as much as their finances. In thinking about how best to achieve that re-orientation, it is worth returning to the two dimensions of trust – personalised and generalised. In banking, both have been casualties. How best are they to be restored?
That may call for the financial sector to seek new ways to define and communicate its purpose, its contribution to wider society, to act as an antidote to the short-term demands of shareholders and executives. Yet it would be easy, too easy, to point the finger at finance alone. For this Great Divide exists not just between the financial elites, but between elites generally and wider society. It is not just bankers who have suffered a loss of public trust. In varying degrees, this is also true of big business, government and, yes, politicians and central banks. These lessons for bankers may be relevant to some of us in this room too. The role of finance in society Let me start by discussing why closing the trust deficit in finance matters to the economy and to society. Whisper it quietly, but a large and well-functioning financial sector is an essential foundation for a growing and well-functioning economy. That is not an ideological assertion from the financial elite; it is an empirical fact. Most of the time and in most countries, finance is a growth-booster not a growth killer. 4 The economic textbooks do not get everything right, but on this they are clear and compelling. Banks and capital markets help finance investment by companies. And that, we know, is the seed-corn of future growth. 5 They also help insure against risk by companies and households. And that, we know, is the seed-corn of stability.