Banks in middle of PR nightmare

What the financial sector needs to do to stop the bad PR

When the President of the United States says publicly that your industry’s behavior is “shameful” and shows “irresponsibility,” you know you’ve got a big fat PR nightmare on your hands.

Such is the case with the banking and financial services sector. Months of news reports about million-dollar office renovations (Merrill Lynch), Super Bowl carnival parties (Bank of America), and junkets to Palm Beach and Las Vegas (Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo respectively) have raised the ire of the media and the public to apoplectic levels.

“Companies that have gotten bailouts continue to make a mockery of taxpayers,” said New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd earlier this month. And President Obama, discussing the enormous bonuses that bank execs received in 2008, said, “That is the height of irresponsibility … It is shameful.”