Is the financial services industry detached and isolated?
Is the Australian financial services industry guilty of having detached itself from everyday business by mostly trading with itself, talking to itself, and judging itself by its own standards?
That is the view held by UK economist and author, John Kay and the CFA Societies Australia intends putting to the Australian industry by sponsoring Kay to speak in both Sydney and Melbourne early next month.
CFA Society Sydney president, Anthony Serhan said that while Kay's views might challenge the industry, they tapped directly into some of the issues currently being addressed by the Australian Government in response to the Financial Services Inquiry's recommendation to lift standards across the industry.
Kay is noted for stating that finance has become an industry that mostly trades with itself, talks to itself, and judges itself by reference to standards which it has itself generated.
"And the outside world has itself adopted those standards, bailing out financial institutions that have failed all of us through greed and mismanagement," he claims.
Serhan said the nature of the financial services industry demanded two things of those who serve it — an instilled sense of ethics and of market integrity.
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