The banking industry, and hopefully with it the rest of the financial services industry, received a wake-up call this week when the banks came under the scrutiny of politicians at a three-day hearing of the parliamentary committee on trade and industry.
It was a good week for Personal Finance as the hearing, coming on our third birthday, was in part a result of work by Personal Finance journalists.
After years of believing that they can treat customers with contempt, and newspapers like Personal Finance with as much disdain, the banks must have been shocked by the view of their industry expressed at the hearings and the publicity it received.
It was an often contrite Bob Tucker, chief executive of the Banking Council, who put the case for the banks at the hearings, admitting that customers were not properly informed and even where the criticism of banks was unjustified, it was probably still the fault of banks because no effort had been made to give people the correct information.
The hearing covered a vast field from bank charges, profiteering on interest rates, the level of service, the protection of investors, the position of low income earners and the opening up of competition between banks. Each of these issues is complex often with no right or wrong answer.
The lesson for the financial services industry is that there are now parliamentary representatives who believe in protecting the interests of you and I and widespread malpractices must be stopped.
The lesson for the banks is that they can no longer only see their customers as a source from which they can milk ever larger profits. If they do not treat customers well and with respect customers will become increasingly mercenary in their approach to banks and in the end bank profits will suffer.
For consumers the lesson is: be as mercenary as the banks are about profits. They are not loyal to you, so there is no need to be loyal to them. Demand information about charges and interest rates, do not meekly suffer poor service and take your business where you get the best deal this applies both to when you borrow and save money.
By coincidence, in the very week of the hearings, our latest survey of bank charges shows that charges on transmission accounts have jumped by as much as 50 percent in some cases.
Personal Finance will not let up in its efforts to inform you about products in the market and their pros and cons to help you protect yourself. It will also continue to press for the proper regulation of the financial services industry, which often seems intent on always doing the minimum it can get away with in offering you proper protection.