(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) THERE WILL always be a fair amount of financial mumbo-jumbo thrown at the layman while experts try to explain the current crisis mode at UK's banking giant Barclays.
The financial world is rich in jargon, which in fact enabled several banking professionals to continue occupying their chairs despite the perilous financial crisis that almost bankrupted the world only two years back.
Come to think of it, can any crisis erupt without someone being responsible for it? The crises in the finance sector cannot be attributed to technical glitches; they are almost invariably linked to human greed.
When the global financial crisis rolled out, our experts condensed the problem into one simple word - subprime. Housing mortgage, we now know, was only part of the story. Beneath it were faultlines that the concerned authorities conveniently overlooked.
The current Barclays crisis, likewise, is attributed to some 'convenient oversights.' To simplify the issue, let us just say that some of the bank's staff were making incorrect submission about its lending rates.
Apparently, they were emboldened to do so after they heard (or were told) about a phone conversation between Bob Diamond, currently the CEO of Barclays, and Paul Tucker, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England.
What was the conversation about in reality? Different versions are being floated. On Wednesday, when Mr Diamond testifies to the MPs on the Treasury Select Committee, we will have an official version of what he recalls of the conversation.
There is much riding on this for Mr Diamond. Several politicians and shareholders of the company had wanted him out despite the group chairman Marcus Agius already resigning in the wake of Barclays being fined over the rate rigging scandal.
With some 20 banks facing examination by regulators around the world, the exit of Agius looks like the start of another rough summer for the banking industry.
The trouble here is not with the banking profession. As in any industry, there are heroes and villains, and good-hearted and rogues in the banking industry too.
While most other sectors can get away with personal idiosyncrasies and even plain goof-ups, the banking industry has an underlying obligation to be objective and responsible for the simple reason that they are repositories of public trust and money.
They cannot afford to be what Gordon Gekko called a 'moral hazard,' - which is "when they take your money and then are not responsible for what they do with it."
Banks are not known to be kind to their customers when they err on their payments. Customers complain of how they are threatened with devastating consequences if they fail to comply with the payment terms.
What happens in the innards of the banks, despite the presence of regulators, go unnoticed in several global banks is what the Barclays episode underlines.
The banking sector must become more transparent. Greed must not take the upper hand over responsibility. In this, there must be no compromise.
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