Unless the oath was legally binding and breaking said oath resulted in automatic jail time, load of bollocks.

Quite so. "You've been incredibly dishonest in the past and caused a lot of people to lose their houses and jobs, but we'll trust you again as long as you say you won't be dishonest in the future". They seriously thought it was a good idea to suggest that in public?

I think they need to top up the water in their think tank.

Jon

I agree.

What you would need is a recognised professional qualification that anyone working in the banking sector needs and then an independent body that can strip you of that qualification if you have acted outside of its standards

Absolutely. we need chartered bankers the way we have chartered engineers, with the same requirement to be chartered to work on things that may have significant consequences if they go wrong.

A lot of engineers are not chartered, at least not for the first 5 years of their careers, it may stop the 20-something investment bankers get pay packages of hundreds of thousands

and how is that a bad thing......

although in reality you would be in a "traning / Pre-Chartered" status - i.e. under the guidance of someone who is and who would be struck off if you misbehaved

Does that mean that Engineers can be paid at bankers levels?

My heart bleeds. I don't actually care which bankers get massive pay packets, I just care that the ones that do have some idea of the risks they are taking and consider themselves to have some responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Recent evidence suggests there's not much of either going round.

Basically put, I want the people who are capable of crashing the economy not to be arseholes. It's not too much to ask, really, is it? However they have repeatedly shown they can't be trusted not to be arseholes, therefore refraining from arseholery must be forced on them.