Family values needed by banks says PM
April 1, 2009 by admin
Filed under News, News-Banking
In a speech that will be made at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is to appeal to banks and the financial industry to instil more family type values.
The PM has said that banks and the financial industry need to operate using the same types of family values that we all try to bring into our lives on a day to day basis. This issue will be a main focus of the G20 Summit of world leaders, pushing other issues such as ploughing more money into the economy to the back of the agenda.
Mr Brown has said that banks and financial institutions need to operate systems ‘which respects the values we celebrate in our everyday lives’.
He said: ‘In our families we raise our children to work hard and to do their best and do their bit. We don’t reward them for taking risks that would put them or others in danger, and we don’t encourage them to seek short-term gratification at the expense of long-term value.’
He also added: ‘And in Britain’s small businesses, managers and owners do not train their teams to invest recklessly, behave secretively or keep their biggest gambles off the books. Most people who have worked hard to build up their firm or shop don’t understand why any company would give rewards for failure; or how some people have grown fabulously wealthy making failed bets with other people’s money. And so our task today is to bring the imperatives served by our financial markets into proper alignment with the values held by families and business people across our country – hard work, taking responsibility, being honest, being fair.’
