Mervyn King: Banks still deny their failure

The Governor of the Bank of England has launched a fresh attack on Britain’s banks, claiming that they are in denial about public anger at their behavior.

Accusing the banks of double standards, Sir Mervyn King said that they lectured everyone else on the need to live with market disciplines until the financial crisis hit — and then they asked for bailouts. “Market discipline can’t apply to everyone except banks,” he said. Sir Mervyn said that the anger against the banks was “very real and wholly understandable”.

He shrugged off the attacks by British banks on him for failing to offer more support during the crisis.  “I think it is because they found it very, very difficult to face up to the failure of their banking model. That model needs to be restructured,” he is quoted as saying in the article published in the Times.