Sir Mervyn King has called for an end to bankers being “demonised” for their role in the financial crash, insisting the problem was with the system rather than individuals.
The outgoing governor of the Bank of England said there was a failure to adequately regulate the financial sector and society had given “too much status” to those in the City.
Bankers who presided over the collapse of their institutions have been the subject of angry attacks from politicians, the public and the press.
However, in an interview, Sir Mervyn said: “What bankers did was not the only explanation of the crisis that we had.
“What we had was a world in which interest rates had become very low, investors of all kinds not just banks were desperately searching for ways in which they could earn more return, so they took big risks. Those risks, some of them, went wrong.
“I would say to people, though, don’t demonise individuals here. This wasn’t a problem of individuals, this was a problem of a failure of a system. We collectively allowed the banking system to become too big.”
