Bankers: more sinned against than sinning

Recently I was listening to a YouTube preacher calling all bankers as sinners. A section of people in our society have similar perceptions about bankers. This encouraged me to explore further on this claim. The result I got is something that I like to share.

Bankers in our country are very often persecuted as the scapegoat of a financial crime. The common scenario following a large loan scandal in our country: the well-connected borrower takes a flight to the safe haven. Thereafter, a junior banker who conducted the loan origination process is quickly picked up as the offender. This is how you shift public attention from the actual swindler to a junior banker.

Experience has shown that financial crimes can't be eliminated, but can be controlled and detected. It is not difficult to isolate a criminal by looking into the motive of the crime and who is the beneficiary of the crime. Well-meaning societies follow this rational process.

Organisations like the Serious Fraud Office of the UK and the Federal Bureau of Intelligence of the US have dedicated resources to pinpoint the criminals. If our law enforcers decide to treat people fairly, they can emulate the same process.

Not every society treats bankers unfairly. Take the example of the Libor scandal in recent times. A few major financial institutions colluded with each other to manipulate the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor). Regulators were discreet and prompt in imposing hefty fines on Deutsche Bank, Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The point here is, regulators decided to punish the organisations which collectively overlooked the offence and derived financial benefits. The regulators judged the organisations as wrongdoers, not employees. The simple logic is that employees work for a living and the board of directors or policymakers work for profit.

The prevalence of siphoning off money is commonplace in Bangladesh. This criminal act is fancifully called money laundering. There are some anti-money laundering processes in place for bankers to comply. Once the crime is detected, all fingers are pointed to the banking process and to those who carried it out. Consequently, the real criminal gets away with his crime and bankers are implicated instead.

Sins, for the purpose of this article, imply shortcomings in professional or personal conduct. Bankers are of course not saints. They have their limitations and chances of judgmental errors.

Societies need bankers for the special services they are trained to provide. In return, bankers deserve fairness. But recent events demonstrate that our society is inclined toward people with power and wealth. Bankers get victimised and the swindlers get away with their crimes.

Our society's tendency to mix pitfalls with sins reminds me of the Shakespearian drama character King Lear. King Lear had a feeling that his own people exaggerated his minor faults and undermined his contribution to the community he lived in and ruled. In a bitter reaction, the king exclaimed: "I am the man, more sinned against than sinning."

The way bankers are being treated, they have enough reason to yell: "We are the bankers, more sinned against than sinning."

The author is an independent director of Bank Asia Limited. He can be reached at dhc707@gmail.com