ABSTRACT
There are few sectors in the developed economies that have experienced so many changes over recent decades on technological, economic and legal grounds as the financial sector. Since the full convertibility of the dollar in August 1971 and the subsequent internationalisation, globalisation and deregulation of the financial market, the financial sector has evolved from a servicing industry into an initiating and leading sector in the international industrialised economy. In the last century, until approximately the 1980s, banks had the primary objective of arranging payments and facilitating the real economy through connecting savings and investments with each other. Nowadays, the trade in liquidity, securities, derivative financial instruments and debt securities of many forms has become a goal in itself. The power of the financial sector, including credit rating agencies, determines the creditworthiness of companies and countries. Today’s financial sector dominates the real economy rather than serving it. It is true that the ‘discipline’ of the financial markets during recent decades has streamlined many companies and countries, but globalisation has also excessively strengthened worldwide competition and interdependence among companies and financial institutions. As a result, the economic pressure on all agencies involved has grown substantially – not least on the banks themselves. Moral conduct generally is threatened if the institutions involved and/or individual employees are being squeezed themselves.
