Scandals like the Panama Papers report have made people demand more transparency from their banks
A stream of seemingly constant scandals has made people demand more from their banks, a survey released today has found.
The poll by Triodos Bank discovered that the news agenda in 2015, which included the conviction of Tom Hayes for Libor-related offences and the publication of a report into the HBOS collapse, had led to 22 per cent of people feeling more concerned about ethics in business.
Half (50 per cent) of those surveyed said banks should make their customers aware of where their money was being invested, while around a quarter (23 per cent) said that trying to find such information was disappointingly difficult.
A quarter (25 per cent) also said that it was important to them that they knew that their money was not being invested in something they would find ethically dubious, and 18 per cent said they wanted to know that their deposit at their lending institution of choice was being put towards investments that had a positive impact on society.
The release of the poll comes the day before the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) deadline to banks to find out if they can be linked to Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers scandal.
The FCA confirmed to City PM last week that it had sent a letter to a number of banks and other financial institutions giving them until 15 April to complete their first round of in-house investigations.