The perils of confusing disclosure with transparency

Some of the financial services industry’s biggest errors of judgement – from the recent humiliation of large parts of the UK’s banking system to smaller-scale but equally distressing mis-selling – have undermined the vital trust that should exist between consumers and the industry, and result, in part, from a failure to be open with customers. Depending on a person’s point of view, they might think the industry is rotten to the core, or perhaps just misrepresented by a few bad eggs. I think any bad practice is, thankfully, very limited, but I do believe there is a more general issue with...