14. Conclusion

Drawing together the themes and many incidents of absent management in banking, the conclusion is that only simplifying banks will reduce the likelihood of future absent management, bank failures and financial crisis. Regulation will be most important to achieve this. Until now banks’ lobbying appears stronger than the political will to simplify banks through regulation. There is some hope that shareholders will play a part by selling the shares of complex, unmanaged banks. Conglomerates have gone out of fashion in industry and perhaps banks will go the same way. Societies need to understand that sometimes some banks are not managed. We need to protect ourselves against unmanaged banks and their potential to cause devastating financial crisis.