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You know things have reached a low ebb when the counsel assisting the asks ruefully what financial institutions are up to when 鈥渓eft alone in the dark with our money鈥�, before going on to answer his own question with a litany of inglorious, technicolour skulduggery. The Australian Banking Association adds a truly surreal flavour to the mix by announcing that it has 鈥渞efreshed鈥� its industry code with the aim 鈥渢o stop banks charging fees to dead people and to ensure they only extract fees from customers in exchange for services actually provided鈥�. Really?!

As a matter of fact, rafts of criminal, corporate, contract and consumer protection laws already prohibit such nefarious activities, yet their practice, evidently, is rife. The problem, as Commissioner Kenneth Hayne pointedly puts it, is not the law but the chronic lack of compliance with it and enforcement of it. That the finance sectors鈥� excuse for this circumstance boils down to 鈥渆verybody else is doing it鈥� (what Warren Buffett calls the five most dangerous words in business), bears out Hayne鈥檚 argument.

Appearing before a parliamentary inquiry in mid-October, National Australia Bank鈥檚 CEO Andrew Thorburn used almost identical words to explain how banking has 鈥渄rifted鈥� over the last 20 years away from 鈥渟erving customers鈥� and towards 鈥� well, he wasn鈥檛 so clear about that, but he implied that it was profits and the expectations of shareholders. Maybe we shouldn鈥檛 be surprised by all this. After all, banking and finance cultivates selfishness, encourages deceit, and rewards avarice 鈥� don鈥檛 they? Maybe, but not always and not all the time. In fact, finance can and has been an enormous force for good, as well as bad.

The wealth it has helped generate, especially over the past 50 years or so, has allowed global poverty to plummet and people鈥檚 health, education and general living standards to rise markedly.

Financial inclusion has helped individuals and families to break cycles of poverty, and publicly funded welfare systems have enabled communities to look after the disadvantaged and less able.

And so it should. As Adam Smith reminds us, the only valid reason for any economic system built on 鈥渢he pursuit of self鈥慽nterest鈥� is that it promotes the greater good of society.

In writing Necessary Evil, I set out to argue that very point on a global scale in the specific context of human rights. To investigate how finance, through its myriad forms 鈥� from capital, cash, bonds and shares, through lending, credit, trading and insurance services, to taxation, remittances, foreign aid and philanthropy 鈥� can be harnessed in ways that help human rights, not harm them. Standing in the way of that goal are finance鈥檚 hubristic tendencies. The sector鈥檚 immense size, power and prevalence promote the notion of 鈥渇inancial exceptionalism鈥�, whereby finance justifies its own existence; deemed an end in itself, rather than a means to help achieve other ends.

I argue a way around this obstacle. To reassert finance鈥檚 role as a utility intended to serve society, not to subvert it. Where it can be just and fair, as well as efficient and profitable, and thereby better serve human rights ends. In part, this can be achieved by enhanced regulation (clearer, better enforced and above all, less beholden to the sector), but more importantly, it can and must come from within the sector itself. For if finance is truly to regain the public trust it has so spectacularly lost in recent years, the prevailing perversities of its institutional culture and the incentive schemes must be fundamentally overhauled.

Putting people before profit means that bankers and financiers must take seriously their human rights impact. By doing so, not only would they help protect human rights, they could rehabilitate themselves.

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by , is published by Oxford University.