Click here to read Martin Wolf’s opening salvo
By Jo Johnson
The ‘bonus’ debate boils down to what type of banking system you want. If it is just utility banking, then kiss goodbye to the City of London and much of the economy of the south-east of England. We do not need hundreds of thousands of people to manage the country’s current accounts and loans to small businesses.
The problem is not just that there would be few takers of any calibre for employment in such tedious institutions, but that they would not be needed. A rapid move towards utility-only banking would be a quick way to kill off the financial services expertise that the City of London and Edinburgh has developed over centuries.
