Ethics, Banking and Ownership

The paper analyses the notion of banking ethics and presents a simple model of risk shifting that illuminates the conflict between depositors and shareholders and presents shareholder incentives to gamble "with other peoples' money". Customer ownership through cooperative or savings bank structure solves this problem, however, these structures have problems of their own. Finally, it stresses the benefits of organizational diversity in banking, on how banks in different ownership structures may foster that diversity, and also why ownership may not be a sufficient condition for diversity.