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Can banks change their culture? There seems little doubt that they need to do so. In a recent Pew Research Centre poll 69% of respondents said they view banks and finance firms negatively.

But whether banks are ready to shift their culture is debateable. Many in the banking profession simply do not “get it” when it comes to realising that change is essential. Not simply for regulatory purposes, but because banks cannot survive in the long run as pariahs.

The requirement to shift culture is not restricted to the notorious bonus environment where it seems many bankers really do believe it is business as usual, after the cataclysmic crisis their own behaviour precipitated.

Banks are also hotbeds of sexual discrimination, sexual harassment, bullying, customer abuse, and macho style management that precipitate endless legal challenges often ending is financial penalties that add up to millions.

An investment banker claiming £13.5 million after she was made redundant following maternity leave recently won her case for sex discrimination. Another huge sexual discrimination claim brought against a major investment bank in London and New York as a class action for 500 women was worth more than $1bn.

Yet such is the strength of the present banking culture the response essentially amounts to “greed is good and anyway we can afford it.” No wonder that Lord Myners, the City minister called for an independent review of the investment banking industry and its culture that has also ­permeated many areas of society.

Re-enforcing this was Marcus Agius, chairman of Barclays who told an gathering of bankers recently "the leaders of industry must collectively procure a visible and substantive change in the culture of our institutions..so as fundamentally to convince the world once again that they are businesses which can be relied on."

Pity then that Barclays then later announced the appointment of a new chief executive who came from the investment banking arm of the bank which was hardly a sign of a shift in its own culture.  

Wherever you look it seems the banking industry has something to fix in terms of culture. The Equality and Human Rights Commission for example, found last year that women working full-time in the financial sector earn 55% less, on average, than men.

And the Treasury select committee has expressed concern that only 9% of board members at FTSE 100 banks are women.

Changing cultures is seldom easy. But while there are many approaches to altering cultures a common starting point is rather like that old job about how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?

The well worn answer of “one, because the light bulb must want to change” seems to be apply to UK banks. Not much is likely to change in the banking world until there really is acceptance that change is essential.

As the FSA chairman Lord Adair Turner explained recently: ‘We simply do not know if we have the tools to change the banking culture…"We have pursued the Treating Customers Fairly principle, and can push the banks to change, but they will have to want to change."

The banking industry has been agonising over culture change for several years with different banks accepting in varying degrees the need to change “the way we do things round here.”

Culture is essentially a mix of values, beliefs, assumptions and symbols that define the way a firm conducts its business. What is now being questioned is in what way these need to change in the banking world and secondly how to achieve a sustained change.

Some of the principles of sustained cultural change are now well established. We have summed up some of them in our paper on Sustaining Cultural Change and suggest the change effort falls into two broad categories: organisational change, and individual change.

When it comes to bank culture, apart from the need to actually commit to change, the main focus currently seems on the strategies and processes that might be put in place to achieve a cultural shift.

However an equally big challenge will be how the banks will shift individual behaviour. This will demand considerable understanding of what it takes to generate individual change and how you get human being to act differently.

When it comes to individual level some of the most important factors leading to change include: will, skill, rehearsal, support and rewards.

When these finally surface in the banks’ efforts to shift their cultures we will know they really are serious about it.