The archbishop of Canterbury says that bankers should repent over their mistakes which led to a global financial crisis, but he fears that the financial industry is returning to business as usual.
Archbishop Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, said in an interview Tuesday that he senses a feeling of "diffused resentment" against bankers for failing to accept responsibility and that the government should act to cap bonus payments.
"There hasn't been a feeling of closure about what happened last year," Williams said in an interview on BBC television.
"There hasn't been what I would, as a Christian, call repentance. We haven't heard people saying 'well actually, no, we got it wrong and the whole fundamental principle on which we worked was unreal, was empty.'"
Asked whether bonuses should have been capped, Williams said: "I would have said yes."
"I think that's one of those things that feeds the ... diffused resentment; that people are somehow getting away with a culture in which the connection between the worth of what you do and the reward you get becomes more obscure."
In prosperous countries such as Britain, concerns remain that banks have gone back to previous practices of excessive pay and bonuses. An expected regulation crackdown of the financial sector also hasn't come through yet. These issues are likely to be a major topic when Group of 20 nations meet in Pittsburgh later this month.