Regulating Conduct & Culture in the Financial Industry

Although amorphous as a concept, culture is very much in the regulator’s sights, responding to the widely held belief that poor conduct was at the root of both the 2008 financial crisis and more recent market scandals. Whilst the initial regulatory priority was to promote a more risk-aware culture to support prudential regulation, the examples of Libor and FX manipulation and collusion behaviors helped build the case for the conduct element of culture to rank high in the regulator’s agenda. The growing focus on conduct and customer protection extends the cultural lens into the murkier areas of ethics and integrity: what does “good” look like?