UK Corporate Culture in the Banking Sector - Dissertation Example

The subject represented by UK culture in the banking sector that looks into the role of culture as a key contributor to major conduct failings between 2008 and 2018 delves into an area that has not received much in the way of scholarly attention. The topic is important since the banking sector represents varied departments and processes where the ethics, responsibilities, accountability, and the transparency of employees, and executives are an important part of decision making and banking work responsibilities.

This includes the approach to risk management and decision-based processes as well as being guided by the approach of the bank (cultural foundations) that are a function of its historical development. The varied historical paths that led to the development of culture in banks represented the investigation of a broad range of sources. These consisted of diverse inputs, historical developments and operational credo of financial institutions concerning the inputs contributing to the creation of a culture that influences decision-making, the approach to risk management, loan analysis, and other areas.

In order to approach the subject posed by this exploration, the study used a historical investigation that also consisted of delving into the rules, regulations, and policies of the financial services industry that consisted of a number of materials. A key source in terms of policies was provided by Latham and Watkins (2018) who looked into the nuances of the FCA Senior Managers and Certification Regime. This was an important source as it distinctly referred to the UK’s Financial Services and Markets Act of 2000 that created the country’s Financial Services Authority, which is also known as the FSA which was brought forth in an article by Walker et al (2014).

These two sources have been mentioned first because they delved into the significance of culture as key senior management responsibility for the banking sector. This view is supported by Bailey (2016) in a Guardian newspaper article titled ‘The FCA is making senior management responsible for the culture in their firms’. Other key sources in the conduct of this study represented the FSA’s (2010) Supervisory Enhancement Programme that was borne out of the cultural internal operational failures of Banco Santander / Abbey, Barclays, RBS and ABN Amro, along with Northern Rock (FSA, 2008).

Whilst each of these bank case study examples differed, the key underpinning in all instances was that there was a lack of internal reporting, urgency, transparency and internal risk management oversight. The Approved person Regime (HM Treasury, 2012) was another key source explored in this review. It represented an agency approach to shore up weaknesses in bank senior management supervision through a process that entails government vetting of bank officials that was installed as a result of the varied lack of internal cultural climates revealed in the studies of Banco Santander / Abbey, Barclays, RBS and ABN Amro, and Northern Rock (FSA, 2008).

It included what is termed as the ‘fit and [roper test’ the FSA uses to assess the suitability of an individual to assume an important senior management position (HM Treasury, 2012). The methods that were deployed in this review used the research objectives that entailed how the FCA’s Senior Managers and Certification Regime was developed, and how it has aided in removing the shortcomings of the UK’s Corporate Governance, as well as inherent weaknesses found under Basel II where responsibilities, accountability, ethics, and transparency were not spelled out.

The research questions were designed to look into if the FCA’s Senior Managers and Certification Regime has had an effect in influencing banking corporate culture, along with the role on-executive directors have in the promotion of bank culture and if insight can be gleaned from internal data analysis regarding bank culture.