‘Every business must serve a social purpose.’ These are not the words of a social campaigner or a politician; they are the words of a banker, Ashok Vaswani, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Retail and Business Banking at Barclays, one of the world’s largest banks. Barclays has been involved in at least one major trading scandal and holds the dubious honour of the most fined bank in Britain. There will be some people who will treat his words with understandable cynicism but that would be to miss the point. The point is not that the words are sincere or not – it is that they should have been said at all. Banks are concerned with the control of money – why should they concern themselves with any purpose beyond that? The reason ...
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