Trust in the financial sector is at an all-time low: only 10 per cent of respondents to a recent ITN poll believed that bankers told the truth. That places bankers even lower than journalists and politicians. Yet trust is the essence of financial intermediation. The core purpose of a financial system is to enable savers to have confidence in borrowers whom they do not know: confidence that they will earn the returns they expect and be able to realise their investment when they need funds. This is the issue I have explored in my review of UK equity markets, whose findings are published today.
人们对金融行业的信任度眼下处于史上最低水平：独立电视新闻(ITN)最近的一项民调显示，只有10%的受访者认为银行家说的是实话。人们对银行家的信任度甚至比记者和政客还要低。然而，信任却是金融媒介职能的基础。金融体系的核心目标就是让储蓄者对不了解的借款者有信心：相信自己能够获得希望的收益，并且在需要资金的时候能够将投资变现。这是我在对英国股市的评析中探索的问题，评析结论于近日发布。