Top bankers adopted a softer tone after high-level meetings at the World Economic Forum on Saturday, thanking governments for shoring up the financial system in the hope of avoiding tighter regulation. But, in a reminder of the problems banks still face after absorbing billions of dollars of taxpayers' money in bailouts, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said financiers needed to show real thanks by changing their behaviour.
After kicking off the debate at the Forum's annual meeting with an attack on regulation, bankers took a different tack on Saturday at a meeting with finance ministers, emphasising their wish to help create jobs and boost growth. "I think it was a very constructive meeting and a meeting where we recognised that a lot has changed," Barclays' Chief Executive Bob Diamond, who acted as the co-chair of the bankers this week, told a Davos panel discussion on Saturday.
Lagarde, who was on the same panel, was quick to respond. "The best way for the banking sector to say 'thank you' would be to actually have good financing of the economy, sensible compensation systems in place and reinforcement of their capital," she said to laughter and applause.
The mood in the chic Alpine village soured at the start of the forum, when Goldman Sach chief operating officer Gary Cohn accused rule-makers of pushing risk towards the unregulated financial sector by putting an excessive burden on banks.
Tension rose when J.P. Morgan's boss Jamie Dimon, one of the few US bank bosses to survive the crisis, publicly clashed with French President Nicolas Sarkozy for putting more regulation on the agenda of the G20, which Sarkozy now chairs. But bankers opted for a more conciliatory tone when they met finance ministers, central bankers including European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet and regulators at a close-door gathering on Saturday morning that formally concluded deliberations on financial regulation.
Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann said the mood at the meeting had been good and Prudential Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam, the other informal spokesman of the bankers' group, called the session "a good meeting of minds". "I think it was more upbeat than I expected," said Howard Davies, a former chairman of the UK Financial Services Authority who also attended the meeting.