Can banks win back our sympathy if they apologize for the financial crisis they helped create with their shady credit schemes? Can they win back our goodwill, and rebuild our trust in a bright future?

The reason we’re asking is because recently a number of American and British bankers have admitted their mistakes and apologized, followed by some Dutch bankers.

CEO Floris Deckers of Van Lanschot Bankiers – a relatively small Dutch bank – was the first in the Netherlands to apologize, claiming that he had been worrying the past few years about the way things were done in the banking world, and regretted not doing more about it.

Not responsible
Next in line to apologize was the large Dutch bank ING. Koos Timmermans, member of the executive board of the ING Group and head of risk management, said in the Dutch current events program Zembla that he does not think banks are partially responsible for the crisis. Nevertheless he apologized, because he felt responsible for the fact that a number of clients lost their trust in banks. The ING was balancing on the edge of bankruptcy last year and received several billions in government support.

More careful
Never before had a current CEO of a large Dutch bank publicly apologized. Former CEOs, however, had apologized before. Like Sjoerd van Keulen, former CEO of SNS Reaal, another Dutch bank that has received government support. Although Sjoerd van Keulen did add that ‘his’ bank did nothing wrong. “I do think we should have been more careful.”

Banks admit that they should have been more alert, but do not take full responsibility for the crisis. An article in the Dutch newspaper Trouw explains why.

Changed roles
For one, it is hard to determine who exactly is responsible and who needs to apologize. Many of the people that were potentially accountable, that used to play a part in the crisis, have since changed roles. They are now both sinner and saviour.

Secondly, one can wonder if and how an apology can be made to sound sincere. It is unwise for banks to say they’re not the only one responsible, because that makes it seem like they try to divert the blame. Furthermore, a sincere apology should have a quality of fragility and modesty. If it doesn’t, the apology will be considered insincere. Moreover, when someone is mistrusted, anything they say or do will be mistrusted, no matter how sincere the person is. An apology will be viewed as a calculated action, as a way to repair a reputation or fix a career.

Finally we wonder whether banks are really the ones to blame. Perhaps the neo-liberal governments that let large corporations run off with their free market philosophies are a much larger culprit.