banking reform People are right to be pessimistic, but George Osborne's announcement yesterday has given me a few reasons to be hopeful. Firstly, he announced that the government is going to amend the Financial Services Bill to allow the revenue from fines to go to 'the benefit of the public' rather than the benefit of authorised persons'. At Which? we have long called for this change. It is perverse that all FSA fines, like the 59.5m from Barclays, are recycled back into the pockets of the industry through lower fees to the regulator the following year. And secondly, George Osborne has asked for a review of the current civil and criminal sanctioning powers, with respect to financial misconduct and market abuse. This could mean that in the future those in charge at the banks during these big scandals will face the full wrath of UK law. And although we want a full inquiry into the rates-fixing and how consumers have been affected, we don't want this to hold up reform -- there must be no excuses, no further delay in taking action to fix our broken banking system. The question is, will the government fast-track the urgent banking reforms we need? Share this article 8 Comments These dodgy deals are being motivated by big payouts to the lucky few who manage to get away with it for long enough to trouser the cash they have "earned". A possible answer is to place a large percentage of commissions and bonuses due