Ethics Management in Banking and Finance

This chapter discusses how the values which individuals hold will help to frame choices and so influence the choices that are made. If ethical issues in finance have limited ‘moral intensity’ in comparison to other industries, banks will more often than in other industries fail to recognise an ethical issue and to engage in ethical behaviour. Therefore the primary task of ethics management in banking is to ensure that norms of behaviour make reference to values, and to develop tools to help management and employees to recognise ethical issues. The chapter suggests that the financial services industry would benefit from using deliberative polls, a newly developed decision-making tool. It gives an example of an ethics training programme and considers codes of ethics.