Financial regulation and ethics

The perceived failure of law and regulation to control misconduct in banking has led to a greater focus on ethics in recent years.

One prominent example in the UK is the creation of the Banking Standards Review Council to promote standards of good practice. This follows on earlier initiatives by banks in developing their own ethical codes and the integration of ethical values into the regulatory process through principles-based regulation. This seminar will evaluate these initiatives and the role that they envisage for ethics in banking. It will focus on the links between ethical values and key aspects of the regulatory process such as risk based-regulation, compliance and enforcement. Using these perspectives, the options for integrating ethics into financial regulation will be identified and evaluated.