Apparently, it is only the UK that urgently requires a sea change in banking practices. Bankers – who have been declared “deceitful” and “irresponsible” by no less a luminary than the Governor of the Bank of England – clearly demonstrate their true intentions when they pontificate on how they will treat their customers and actually carry out their policies.

This latest outrage was the result of yet even more despicable, abominable and highly deceptive behaviour by a British bank (Barclays this time) to add to a litany and catalogue of such transgressions by other banks – resulting in a record fine of almost £300 million imposed on Barclays by the Financial Services Authority in the UK.

This fine makes the one imposed on Bank of Valletta by our own purported “watchdog”, the Malta Financial Services Authority, look like a snowflake in a blizzard. It merely emphasises the fact that banks’ and bankers’ indiscretions are not reserved for the UK and that we in Malta have no need or desire for such a banking industry culture change Or do we?

One final point. Is it just me or did anyone else note, or find it ironic, that the chairman of Barclays Bank, who has been charged with such egregious behaviour, is actually of Maltese descent: Marcus Agius? Coincidence?