Professor William Black:

It is true that there is a generic problem with executive compensation that is not limited to banking. I have literature that I have written about how things should be cleaned up more directly but banking is the worst of the worst and it is the one that has been shown to have the most intensive fault. In the US context, for example, we are back where we were before the crisis with 40% of total corporate profits in finance. Finance is simply supposed to be an intermediary, a middleman, and the efficiency condition for a middleman is clear - lean and mean. Instead it has become a parasite that is the leading enemy in the US context of Main Street. The Brits would call it High Street; I do not know whether there is a phrase in Ireland for this. It is bad for regular people and small businesses now. Banking, therefore, needs to be fundamentally changed to make it an engine of what it claims to be - economic growth and strength.