The other day I wrote an article complaining about UK banks but the reality is that the article could have been directed towards banks in almost any country. The comments posted on that article were interesting as well. Of special interest was the long comment posted by a current bank employee that wanted to assert in nine bullet points that the goal of banking was to make money and profits. I get that.

To be fair, my complaints about modern banking are not necessarily exclusive to banks or to banks just in the United Kingdom or United States, which I complain about also. It is more of a complaint of corporate power and greed over the value of a person.

The complaints about not treating banking customers fairly and basically mugging them for profit is more a statement about the mental attitude that profits over people is a goal to aspire to. Those that understand banking understand how banks put money into the economy and serve as a valuable resource. They can offer amazingly safe consumer tools to manage money, grow investments, make transactions and have access to capital when needed. All of that is very good stuff.

My primary issue rests in the attitude that banks have evolved to where they think that banking is all about maximizing profits over providing good customer service and not in making ethical decisions that are fair and reasonable for their customers.

Here is an example, in the UK and US an insanely profitable product is credit protection insurance or payment protection insurance. In the UK banks and other lenders are under investigation for the abuses in selling these policies. I think the concept of PPI makes sense but is it unreasonable to think that a bank can sell a product that actually does not benefit the consumer much and provides huge profit to the bank. Can’t we balance this equation better so that PPI actually pays off when needed and claims are not dodged? Wouldn’t that eliminate the need to “investigate” banks for these practices?

Let’s look at banking fees for a moment and the consumer outrage that emerges from those. It is interesting that the banks seem to be very clear in the fees and charges in the long and lengthy terms and conditions for their credit cards and yet consumers are outraged. Banks blame this consumer anger on stupid customers that don’t read the terms and conditions. But it seems that the real problem is that there is a disconnect between the way the information is presented and consumers understand it.

What if we made those fees and charges more prevalent or more apparent in different ways that allowed consumers to have an equal awareness of the terms. What if we made those things are prevalent as the marketing message to provide a fair and balanced information presentation rather than relying upon the consumer to read the terms and conditions that the banks already know they don’t read.

I’m sure if we tried to do that the marketing departments of banks would have a shit fit and try to block it at all costs. “It will hurt sales”, they will say. “Card acquisition and per unit conversions will suffer”, will lament members of the bank. And the answer to that is, maybe they will, but those customers that come on board will be better informed and aware and less surprised and guess what, happier and bigger fans of the bank and the bank will spend less time defending their practices before government and regulators.

I’m afraid that all we are doing now is creating a generation that is learning to distrust banking and I can’t see how that helps the profession at all except for provide more profits this month or this quarter.

So is ethical banking really possible? I believe it is by brave banks willing to look beyond just profits and greed and to see their customers, from which they will make a profit, as valuable members and not just another widget.