Restoring trust in Barclays 'to take five to 10 years'

BBC News

Barclays chief executive Antony Jenkins says he expects it to be five to 10 years before he can restore public trust in the bank.

Mr Jenkins said that people in large organisations, "want to do the right thing - it's sometimes that they perceive the right thing differently".

Mr Jenkins was guest editor of the Today programme on Radio 4 on Tuesday.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby - also on the programme- said that change would take "a generation."

Mr Jenkins made the comments in a session with students at Brooke House Sixth Form College in East London, at an event organised by the charity Speakers for Schools, which was founded by BBC business editor Robert Peston.

Archbishop Welby said that there had been a "progressive loss of vision of what banks are for".

He added that while many business leaders seemed to have realised the mistakes that had been made, some were clearly still "in denial", although he declined to name them.

He added that there was still refusal to accept the continued need for cultural transformation after the 2008 financial crisis from some in the banking sector.

"I came across senior members of the City who were still absolutely in denial about what happened in 2008," he said.

Speaking to the BBC's chief economics correspondent Hugh Pym, Archbishop Welby said that the failure to accept the need for change was still prevalent in remuneration, or pay practices, in the banking sector.

He said that it was a "generational" challenge.

When asked how far away banks were from serving society as a whole, rather than just the wishes of shareholders, the archbishop said that the challenge of leadership was to make clear the urgency of a "massive cultural change" away from serving shareholders.

Archbishop Welby and Mr Jenkins also appeared together on the Today programme, and spoke of the similarities between leadership of a bank and of the Church of England.

Mr Jenkins said that they shared views on "where banks need to go".

Helena Morrissey, chief executive of Newton Investment Management, was also invited onto the programme and asked about the role of business in the wider community.

She said that "responsibly managed" companies were more likely to perform well, and achieve a competitive advantage.

Mr Jenkins became Barclays boss in August 2012.

It has been a difficult year for banks, with growing compensation claims for mis-selling as well as investigations into rigging parts of the market.