The Banking Standards Board (BSB) was established in 2015 to help raise standards of behaviour and competence across the banking sector.
The BSB has now published its first annual review that looks back over the BSB’s first few months, and ahead to its priorities for the coming year. The themes from 2015, and issues that the BSB will explore further are:
- purpose, values and culture: is a firm’s purpose understood and ‘owned’ across the organisation? Are purpose, values and culture fully aligned, or are there in practice tensions between any of these elements, especially in stressed or uncertain environments?
- culture and compliance: how far does a firm’s strategy for managing culture go beyond managing compliance and conduct risk? Is it focused on avoiding misconduct costs, or does it look more broadly at what influences behaviour and motivation across the firm?
- leadership and key person risk: strong leadership, and leadership by example, are key to a good organisational culture, bit how does a firm ensure that momentum is not dependent on one individual? What is the role of the board in this, and of executive teams and middle managers?
- Incentive and reward structures and practices: are these aligned with the firm’s purpose, value and culture? What is the role of the Remuneration Committees in shaping culture? How does the firm manage the transition from sales targets, and manage any unintended consequences?
- challenge and speaking up? To what extent does a firm create and foster an environment in which staff feel free to speak up if something isn’t right, or could be improved? What is the firm doing to encourage diversity of thought and experience within its workforce? How is this measured? And
- the provision, take-up and effectiveness of staff training and support: how are training and development used in practice? Is this consistent with the firm’s objectives on culture? How is the impact of training on staff behaviour and competence, and ultimately on customer and client outcomes, measured? How does this inform future training?
View Banking Standards Board – Annual Review 2015/2016, 8 March 2016
