From High Flyer to Crook – How Can We Understand the Stigmatisation of Investment Bankers during the Financial Crisis?

Abstract

I was quite proud of it because your, it was, the connotation of working in investment banking was that you were a high flyer. Now that, on the street there’s a connotation that you’re a crook or rather you know, you’re public enemy number one because you know you are spending the tax payers’ money.

(Darren, investment banker, October 2009)

The hostile UK media portrayal of investment bankers has been a striking feature of the financial crisis that occurred in 2008. The occupation, previously feted for its wealth creation and its attraction of business and capital to London, has become severely and widely morally tainted. The media stigmatisation has been widespread, with vituperative comments and headlines not confined, as might be expected, to the tabloids, but also appearing in broadsheets, including the Financial Times - for example ‘Shoot the bankers, nationalise the banks’ (Stephens, 2009).