While in general it fares pretty well relative to others, the Bank’s net trust rating currently stands at 28%. 29 The Bank has a positive trust rating of more than 80% among some members of the public, but among others it has a trust deficit of more than 50%. As for banks, governments and the media, this too is quite a Great Divide. It was writer Norman Douglas who said that “distrust of authority should be the first civic duty”. 30 And as someone sometimes described as an iconoclast, I have sympathy with that sentiment. But, again rather like cholesterol, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Taken too far, distrust can be corrosive rather than regenerative. Sometimes bridging that Great Divide can be a bridge too far. Progress so far That begs the question of what can be done to close the gap, to restore trust in the financial sector, to alter the social identity of banking. There has been no shortage of ink spilled in crafting a response to the crisis. That includes regulatory response where there has been root-and-branch reform of both banks’ prudential standards – their safety and soundness – and consumer protection – their offering to customers and clients. The prudential regulatory reform agenda has been covered extensively elsewhere, including in speeches and consultation documents by the Bank of England, over the past few years. 31 So I shall confine myself to three points.
Andrew G Haldane: The Great Divide Speech by Mr Andrew G Haldane, Executive Director and Chief Economist of the Bank of England, at the New City Agenda Annual dinner, London, 18 May 2016. *  *  *  I would like to thank James Antwis, Andrew Bailey, Jeremy Franklin, Jonathan Fullwood, Andrew Hauser, Andrew Hebden, Alex Holmes, Leanne Leahy, Emma Murphy, Ben Nelson, Laurie Roberts, May Rostom, Pedro Santos, Minouche Shafik, Emma Sinclair and Paul Robinson for their comments and contributions, and to Gillian Stamp for conversations on these issues over many years. In November last year, the Bank of England hosted a so-called Open Forum. This was a new departure. For the first time in its 300-plus year history, the Bank brought together all of the main stakeholders in the financial sector: not just policymakers, banks and investors, but politicians, civil society, businesses, regional representatives, religious groups and the media. This was a deliberately broad church, with an eclectic congregation comprising religious zealots, high priests, regular church-goers, agnostics and atheists. The aim of the Open Forum was to discuss, in an unscripted way, the progress made towards fixing the financial sector. The Open Forum was an opportunity to hear a different set of views from a different set of voices: from the customers and users of finance, as well as the producers and investors; from the often-silent majority of outsiders to finance, as well as the often-vocal minority of insiders. This made for a very different dialogue.