 Let us turn our attention now to the banks. Now, I don't know who you bank with and how long you have banked with them, but a new YouGov poll has revealed that the British public still don't trust banks ten years after the financial crisis. Now, the research comes after their behaviour caused the global financial crisis. The poll commissioned by Positive Money questioned over 2,000 adults from across Britain. It shows a strong majority have a negative view of the banks and how they work. Well, let's find out more. Let's speak to Fran Boat, Executive Director from Positive Money, who carried out the research. Hello, Fran. Hi, thanks for having me on the evening. And thank you for talking to us. Sorry, Fran Boid. Did I get that right? That's correct. Yeah, absolutely. So, Fran, why don't people trust the banks? What was coming out as the biggest reason? So, I mean, we're ten years on since the last crisis, and people are aware that the banks still aren't working in the public's interest. They know that we have nothing to do with the crash, but we've suffered a decade of misery from the bank's actions. You know, we've seen how failure to reform banking turned a dexterity, and we've had massive cuts. You know, hearts have been ripped out of communities, cuts to schools, hospitals. We've seen massive increases in food banks. And people do get that this is connected to the crash we happened ten years ago. We've got the 10th anniversary of Lehman coming up on the 15th of September. And so the polling that we've done shows that two thirds of Brits do not trust that banks work in the best interest of UK society. And actually only one in five actually do think they work in the best interest. We've found that nearly three-quarters say that banks should have faced more severe penalties for their part in the financial crash ten years ago. And only around 10% said that they faced the right amount of penalties. And only 1% believe they should have faced the best of their penalties. So, you know, generally people think that banks have got away with it. And 63% are worried that banks may cause another crash, which our work and research of positive money shows is very likely. That's interesting that that many people, I think once you've lived something and lived through something and seen it, the fear of it happening again is obviously quite high. Definitely. And I think the other thing is, you know, life's got harder for most people in this country over the last 10 years. And they can, you know, they are still aware that that was rooted in the financial crash and how, you know, that turned into a story about austerity when really we should have been focusing on reforming the UK banking and money sector. And that hasn't been done. And, you know, people are saying, well, enough's enough. We've had, you know, 10 years you could call a lost decade. We don't want 10 years of the same. We want to think about a banking system that actually serves the interest of the UK. So it shows how concerned most people are with the fact that, you know, their living standards have dropped, wages stagnating and declining over the last 10 years. And that always connected to the financial crash, which, you know, the 10 year anniversary is coming up in a few weeks. Fran, if you were sitting there in charge of one of the banks, what would you do? Because I wonder whether if you look at the marketing and the advertising that they do, it's mostly about customer service and what this, you know, you can do on the high street in a branch if they've still got them open. But none of them are going to, you know, run advertising that goes, let's put our hands up. Things were terrible. And we had a part in that. So what would you advise them to do? Of course. I mean, what we're keen to do is get more of the public engaged. We've got a grassroots movement. We're going to be marching outside the Bank of England on the 15th of September. So maybe some listeners could join. And the thing about the UK banking system is we have a very, we have a monopoly, essentially, we have five big banks that occupy 85% of the market share. And they aren't interested in serving the UK's economy needs. So of course, they're going to be saying that they have the best service, etc. But there are some fundamentals we need to change in order to get banks that do put customers and businesses and citizens first, that we do need to restructure the system and not enough has been done, we'd say in terms of regulating the bank since the crash. So if I was, you know, if I was in charge of a big bank, say RBS, which has is actually owned by us, by the people who've got 70% of the market share the government does, I'd be thinking, you know, my business model doesn't work anymore. And I want to serve the UK. So why don't I look at how I could be, you know, changing my business model to serve the productive economy of the UK rather than global financial markets. Realistically, I don't think, you know, I don't think a CEO of one of our big banks is going to do that. And that's why we need a grassroots movement for change. And that's why we're going to be campaigning on the 15th. And this poll is so important. We've talked about what the bank should do. But what about us as consumers? Is there anything we can do? Because I wonder whether the one thing that came out of the financial crisis that people started to understand the banking system a bit more? Yeah, I mean, obviously, positive money is one of the few organizations that were set up in response to the crash. And that's why, you know, we're keen to mark this 10th anniversary with a conversation around not enough has been done. But we've also seen other campaigns and other organizations coming out and move your money to have looked at how you can shift your money out of the big banks that did cause the crash and into more socially or environmentally useful banking or financial institutions. But I think, you know, it is about getting more people calling on their banks to change, you know, banks do listen to their customers. So if you do have a bank, if you do bank with one of the big ones, then you can ask them, you know, some significant questions around, you know, around the continuing scandals we hear coming out, whether it's the one that came out early in the year about Barclays and Qatar or HSBC, you know, there is a kind of unending level of stories that come out about how poorly these banks have been run. There's a lot of, you know, wrongdoing. And we've seen, you know, not only too big to fail banks, but too big to jail. And that's a big issue. So yeah, I mean, you know, people are super busy, apparently you're more likely to break up with your relationship than change your bank. We know it's a challenge. This is the thing is how how many people change, but you know, change, change banks that frequently. It just seems like such a headache, doesn't it? Well, that's why they made it a lot easier a few years ago. But the problem is that we don't have enough choice in the UK. We have this stranglehold by these five big, globally systemic, too big to fail banks. And that just isn't going to produce. Well, that's interesting because it works for people. What that says to me is there's room in the market for a new a new style or certainly a new brand of bank to come along market themselves completely differently. However, that may be whether it's in a very open and honest, different manner. And that consumers might be interested in that. Exactly. And I think it's just going to ape what's already on the market. What's the point? Yeah, I think we need both. So we need to change the old because older causing problems. We have another financial crash. It'll probably come from one of the big banks, but we need to grow the new. We need new types of banks for the small credit unions, regional banks, stakeholder banks, things that work for different people. You know, some people need a branch. That's how they do their banking. Others happy to do it all online and with new apps. But the key is that we want to think about banking and financial services that start with with the consumer and with small businesses and not with global financial market and just kind of your short term profits. So it's not something that can be done overnight, but we're hopeful that things are moving in this poll shows that the public do want change. Fran, thank you for talking to us. Fran Boit there, who is from Positive Money, who carried out that research that we've been talking about.