The lost balance… The dilemma isn’t banks VS society
Source: in-cyprus.com
Last week, we witnessed the banking system presenting a new face. How elegant and beautiful it seemed… A more humane aura emerged from that flood of announcements about reduced lending rates, support for borrowers and vulnerable groups, and various other initiatives that appeared to spring from purely philanthropic motives.
However, the same nagging question persists: To what extent are these policies and practices shaped under suffocating pressures, and how sustainable are they in these volatile times?
Do these recent initiatives risk undermining the profitability or robustness of banking institutions? Where are the voices of the doom-mongers? Especially when similar measures have already been tested in banking systems across other countries, particularly in the Eurozone, while we trail behind, breathless and perspiring? This painful saga also passes judgment on all those who routinely burden ordinary people with additional guilt about whether or not the system is resilient. The real issue isn’t about resilience at all, but rather whether responsible policies are prevailing that align with a balanced system.
The dilemma was never “banks versus society”. Indeed, no sensible person believes that any economic system can sustain itself without a robust banking sector. Conversely, any system – particularly the banking system – can only be considered robust when the prosperity reflected in numbers translates into human prosperity. This isn’t about empty rhetoric, but about practical reality. Any deviation simply points to profiteering and price-gouging that prey upon society.
We mustn’t forget that when the banking sector needed support several years ago, some citizens shouldered an unbearable burden and endured unprecedented “haircuts”, bringing them to their knees financially. Time has revealed just how honest – or dishonest – such practices and methods were.
The system has moved from lean times to fat ones. However, it was completely ignored that the time had come for banks to show their human face in return. They appeared interested only in acting coldly as profit-seeking organisations, focused solely on the prosperity of their indicators. The average citizen saw any face but a human one… What remained lost was the balance between these inextricably linked parameters: the system and the human being. Nobody wants to strangle the banks, but everyone should lose sleep if even a single citizen in this country couldn’t survive because they were trapped by ruthless practices and methods.
The original article: belongs to in-cyprus.com .
