Barclays new chief
executive has sent a memo to his 140,000 staff telling them to sign up to a set
of ethical standards or go and find work somewhere else.
Antony Jenkins was
promoted to the top operational position at the bank after it was rocked by the
LIBOR scandal over attempts to rig interest rates.
He told staff:
"we must never again be in a position of rewarding people for making the
bank money in a way which is unethical or inconsistent with our values."
He warned anyone
reluctant to toe the line that "Barclays is not the place for you."
Barclays new code of
conduct would be based on Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and
Stewardship.
In contrast Mr
Jenkins admitted that banking had become too aggressive and too focused on
short-term gain.
He told employees
that in Barclays there was "a tendency at times, manifest in all parts of
the bank, to pursue short-term profits at the expense of the values and
reputation of the organisation."
The bank is training
a task force of 1,000 staff to spread the message to other employees over the
next few months.
Barclays was the
first of several international banks to be implicated in the LIBOR affair. Last
June it paid fines of £290m and its then chief executive, Bob Diamond, was
later forced to resign.
No comments:
Post a Comment