Editor, RE: “Getting bank culture right” (The New Times, September 4). Crimes are being committed; bank officials like everyone else are answerable to the same laws. Banks haven’t reformed themselves and they will never as long as they are not held responsible for their crimes. The 2007-2008 banks fraud never stopped, the big multinational banks are still sucking up national economies and individual citizens. In May 2015, major banks agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges and pay some penalties to settle charges their traders routinely manipulated the world’s foreign-exchange market for their own profit. Some of those banks are Citicorp (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), London-based Barclays (BCS), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Swiss banking giant UBS; they agreed to pay $545 million. The banks’ executives will continue in their criminal activities if they are not criminally charged and sentenced. These fines are worthless compared to the pocketed billions. Such penalties will do little to change the pervasive culture of corruption that currently exists in the banking sector. Real change will only occur when corrupt bank officials are indicted, arrested, convicted and sent to prison for their crimes as it happened in Iceland. Ndoli Sabi
