While Dutch bankers need to take the new ethical rules seriously, implementation may present challenges, says Jonathan Soeharno, a lawyer at De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek in Amsterdam.
“Other professions, such as lawyers and doctors, have a long-standing tradition of ethics,” he said. “With bankers, however, we don’t really know what the professional standards entail. More so, we don’t really know what ‘‘the banker” is. There is a large variation of roles within the industry.’’
The oath, the first of its kind in Europe, became binding on board members of Dutch banks last month as the government sought to rein in an industry with assets more than four times the size of the country’s economy. All 90,000 Dutch bank employees must take the pledge, or a non-religious affirmation, starting the second half of this year.
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(Bloomberg, 6 February 2014)