Aristotle allegedly claimed that making money from money is the profession of parasites.

That may sound extreme—and I say this as a banker—but surely we can agree that much of banking is, by necessity, a tightly regulated public service. Banks must never be single-minded profiteers; they are essential guardians of a well-functioning market infrastructure. Yet all too often, it feels as though wild Dionysus, not wise Apollo, rules the modern temples of Mammon: many bankers today seem to have abandoned any commitment to public virtue or the common good, chasing corporate irresponsibility for the sake of incremental alpha. Unsurprisingly, every few years, we find ourselves once again footing the bill for yet another outrageous financial scandal. Will it never end? Is there really no way to achieve greater accountability in banking?

Of course, we’ve been here before. After the 2008 financial crisis, we all vowed to tighten regulation and—above all—reform the incentive structures in banking. We promised to link bonuses to long-term value creation rather than short-term speculation, mainly by introducing multi-year deferral periods and making it easier to claw back bonuses. And of course, we repeated the mantra: “no one is above the law,” as Joe Biden once again insisted just last week. Yet, we all know that’s not quite true. In reality, while governments around the world have been busy drafting new regulations—many of which were never implemented—almost no failed banker has ever seen jail time. As Brooke Masters points out in today’s FT, it took eight years after Wells Fargo’s wrongdoing became public for US prosecutors to bring their first case. And just like the infamous Al Capone trial, Carrie Tolstedt, Wells Fargo’s former retail banking head, ultimately pleaded guilty only to a technical mishap—so far, no one has been charged for the bank’s blatantly immoral sales tactics. So if our justice system cannot hold (executive) failures in banking to account, and our upgraded bonus systems haven’t worked, what else is left to try?

I would highlight a few points.

First, regulation is necessary—and it has made a difference. As Christine Lagarde notes, financial resilience in the Eurozone has improved significantly. Since the Wirecard scandal and others, national agencies are finally beginning to rise to the challenge. For example, the Bank of England apparently warned US regulators about increasing risks at SVB a full 18 months before its collapse, so there was ample time to intervene—if only there had been the political will.

Second, incentives are deeply problematic even at the best of times. Even well-intentioned incentive systems rarely achieve their intended purpose. Perhaps the answer is not to make them more sophisticated, but to abandon them altogether. Once we accept that banks are public institutions, we simply cannot allow them to be driven primarily by financial returns or the interests of greedy shareholders. For clarity, I am not advocating for the abolition of all bonuses—only for executives. It is absurd to claim that banks are owned solely by investors—whether pension funds, oil-rich sovereign wealth funds, or private stockholders—when every deposit is guaranteed by the state as lender of last resort, and every failure is bailed out with taxpayer money. Like Plato’s guardians in the republic, senior bankers should be viewed as bureaucrats, responsible to society as a whole—not car salesmen or reckless entrepreneurs. Banking should be, in the best sense, “stunningly boring.”

Third, context and culture can corrupt even the best structures. It is not enough to make everyone swear a banking oath (as I did upon joining the profession) if, in reality, the only things that matter are budgets and ROE. Where toxicity is tolerated, toxicity prevails. We must hold supervisory boards and HR teams accountable for much more carefully selecting executives, and for much more actively maintaining the “virtues” of banking. We need competent people with strong character—people who care about the real essence of banking and are not seduced by outsized bonuses or addicted to the thrill of “creative” finance. They must be willing to stand up for what is good. Against this backdrop, it is hard to take seriously Credit Suisse chair Axel Lehmann and CEO Ulrich Koerner’s reassurances to staff—sent just hours after the UBS merger—that bonuses and raises would go ahead. Or the fact that SVB CEO Greg Becker, who earned $9 million annually, managed to cash in $30 million worth of shares in the last two years, including a $3.6 million tranche just days before the bank’s collapse and taxpayer bailout. This, inevitably, raises a further question: who sits on these supervisory boards, and where is their accountability? Alex Lehmann & co—your time is up.

But ultimately, if we’re honest, this isn’t just about banking—it’s about our entire collective relationship with money. If we truly want to rein in excesses within the sector, we must, as Aristotle urged, demand that the financial system make a positive contribution to society’s well-being. That means scrutinising every corner of our “financial economy”—from stock markets to financial instruments—and asking whether money is truly serving the public interest. Is it supporting real people and the real economy? Does it embody the values and virtues we claim to uphold? Is it financing endeavours that bring out the best in humanity?

In the end, it’s not simply a matter of incentive schemes, capital ratios, or even the perennial debate about banks being “too big to fail.” The real issue is ensuring that Finance serves society—rather than ruling over it.