For all the battering HSBC’s leaders have received at the hands of MPs lately, it is the words today of a former regulator, Robert Jenkins, which could prove the most damaging.
Jenkins, a top investment banker and fund manager before joining the Financial Policy Committee watchdog, is no populist politician with an eye on the hustings.
So when he says HSBC’s chairman Doug Flint must resign, shareholders, directors and, yes, Flint himself, will listen.
Jenkins argues Flint was finance director during both the Mexican and Swiss takeovers which brought money laundering and tax evasion into the bank. He was in post during all the wrongdoing that has proved so costly.
Now, Jenkins says, instead of just apologising for the scandals, he should take responsibility for them too.
Read the full London Evening Standard article by Jim Armitage here.
