After every economic crisis comes a recovery and transparency from financial institutions will be key to regain trust in the system.

The image of financial institutions has eroded heavily over the past years. The industry as a whole has had a lot of bad press and some financial institutions have clearly crossed the fine line between doing what is good for the business and unethical behaviour. It is clear this has taken its toll on the industry and the fog still hos not cleared on its effect of the industry as a whole. There is no doubt the financial sector is key to re- boost the economy in any country, but we need to ensure the sector does not make this same mistakes.

For example, new regulations have been enforced on the sector, in an effort to make it more solvent, and less prone to short term profit maximalisation, like the the Basel agreements for banks to have more robustness and repeated stress tests on their balance sheets for greater control.

But confidence can not be recovered by regularization only. It will take time and effort by the private entities to change public perception of the sector. This can only be achieved by transparency, with less less secrecy in operations and a real desire to create value above benefits.

Additionally, increased competitive pressure from ethical financial entities, like Triodos, and new innovative entrants, like Ecrowd, will help to ensure that pressure will be maintained on the financial sector.