The severity of the recent financial crisis has struck at the heart of the relationship between the Financial Sector and wider Society. Finance is a fiduciary industry, yet the bonds of trust, both within the industry and between the industry and its customers, that enable the financial sector to operate have been broken. In place of the usual fiduciary trust and good faith there is now on the one side a defensive and dysfunctional industry and on the other huge anger and an increasingly vengeful desire for retribution. And without trust, the ability of the financial sector to continue to work for the benefit of all is much diminished.

It is therefore necessary, if not urgent, that the bonds of trust between the industry and Society should be rebuilt as soon as possible. It is precisely now, when the real economy in many developed countries faces a difficult time in the years ahead, that Society needs the financial services industry to support those experiencing hardship, to provide funding for those facing temporary shortfalls, and to help build the recovery and stronger economy of the future. Yet there is depressingly little sign that that either side is prepared to make the required moves to rebuild the respect and trust that is needed for this to be possible. Instead we see endless discussions and investigations of what went wrong, who was to blame, and what new restrictions and regulations should be imposed on financial companies to avoid a repeat of the collapse.

The relationship between the financial sector and Society can be likened to a marriage. Both partners need the other for the relationship to prosper, and both need the trust of the other to be able to contribute to the full to their mutual well-being. At the moment, Society is like the wife whose husband has been unfaithful: the financial sector has, in many people's eyes, been caught cheating on her. But - to continue the analogy - divorce is out of the question, as Society needs a well-functioning financial industry, and the only question is therefore the terms under which Society and Finance try to rebuild the marriage.

David Fuller's view An accompanying email added:

"I like the marriage analogy in the attached note from John Nugee: Finance and Society might benefit from an appointment with a Guidance Counsellor..."

Staying with the marriage analogy, in my observation these work best when the husband (in this instance the financial sector) chooses to serve the family (society), rather than treat it as a possession. Instead, it too often forgets that it is a service industry and becomes amoral at best.

Predatory firms become pariahs in the eyes of society and that is bad for business. Companies which treat customers equally and aim to provide a good service or product are more likely to be successful for longer. This is not altruism; it is commercial common sense.