The front line

Europe: now it’s time for some good news

From Brussels to Bucharest, SIMON THOMPSON is encouraged by the clear evidence of senior bankers following the UK lead with initiatives to improve financial education and banking professionalism.

It’s an inescapable reality that, for more nervous months ahead than any of us care to foresee, Europe is bound to be the worrying topic of intense interest to people everywhere, and bankers in particular (see p18).

We can’t pretend to have some magic Institute prescription for solving the woes of the eurozone. Who does? But we shouldn’t let that blind us to some of the modest but unquestionably positive news in the European arena right now.

The first concerns the welcome expansion of the European Financial Education Partnership (see p10). It’s based on the highly successful schools education programme we’ve been running with other organisations in the UK. Its purpose is to help school children grasp the fundamentals of credit and debt and how important it is not to live beyond our means.

And in this, we’re widely seen as a global leader in our provision of financial education. We are, if not the only country, then certainly one of the few where financial education is now formally part of the school curriculum.

And this leadership reaches further than schools. Other European countries are now looking to adopt our model of professional banking education. In Bucharest, for example, Romania’s Institute of Bankers, backed by Banca Natio nala a României, its central bank, has just decided that, rather than invent its own professional education programme, it will use ours. They’re the first European country to adopt our Chartered Banker programme.

And they’re not alone. In Brussels recently for the 20th anniversary of the European Banks Training Network, I was immensely encouraged by the high level of interest there is in the Chartered Banker Professional Standards Board we’ve just launched in the UK with the muscular backing of the UK’s nine biggest banks.

It’s quite clear that, within that politically well-connected organisation, senior European bankers are looking at the UK initiative as part of their wider and urgent examination of ways to help restore confidence and trust in banking across Europe.

None of this provides any immediate sticking plaster for the eurozone. But, both for today’s bankers and tomorrow’s citizens, it’s reasonable to be encouraged by the positive things we’re all doing to prevent our problems recurring.

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