According to the latest research by Marketing Innovation Forum, advisers blame the financial institutions, regulators and the government for the current economic downturn. Far fewer consider that the blame lies with advisers, borrowers or society at large.
When asked ‘which of the following do you think are most to blame for the credit crunch?’, three in ten blamed ‘financial institutions’, representing the most popular response from over 280 received. ‘Regulators’ received a quarter of the vote and ‘government’ 23% of the responses, suggesting strong feeling that the financial institutions have been inadequately controlled.
Conversely, only 4% considered that the blame lies with advisers and only 6% with the borrowers themselves. The remaining 12% of votes went to 'society/culture' at large.
Derek McGuire, Director of Marketing Innovation Forum, said: “The response is loud and clear; users of our website lay the blame for the current situation firmly with the politicians, regulators and, primarily, the financial institutions. It's interesting the volume of blame apportioned to those who provided the infrastructure and facilitated the credit, compared to those who took advantage of it and advised others to do so.”
Pete Gwilliam, Director of Virtus Search, says, “In the last 20 months the industry, then the wider world realised that all of the bull market sentiments were held together by credit and funding lines. The severity and abruptness of the correction has left us all re-evaluating and in many cases looking for scapegoats.
“In my opinion greed rather than necessity, forced many people to overstretch themselves financially, in the UK and the US. Once borrowing became so accessible the floodgates opened and it became the norm. The “Credit Party” created a great time for many and made for a massive hangover.”
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