Barclays Chief Shifts His Tone on Banks’ Blame for Crisis
LONDON - The chief executive of Barclays, Robert E. Diamond Jr., said Thursday that banks should “accept responsibility for what has gone wrong,” a change of tone from comments he made earlier this year.
In a speech delivered Thursday evening at the BBC Broadcasting House in London, Mr. Diamond called on bankers to become “better citizens.” In January, Mr. Diamond told a parliamentary committee that the period for remorse of banks was over and that “the question for us is, how do we put some of the blame game behind us?”
Mr. Diamond, the first speaker of the BBC Today Program Business Lecture series, said Thursday that the banking industry needed to do three things to rebuild trust.
“First, we have to build a better understanding of how businesses and banks work together to generate economic growth,” he said. “Second, we have to accept responsibility for what has gone wrong; finally, most importantly, we have to use the lessons learned to become better and more effective citizens.”