Bankers have a reputation of being very conservative and well, frankly, boring. As an ex-banker I’d like to defend this and say that rather than the image of grey suited accountants, they should be seen as heroes like Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible. After
all – bankers are in the risk business – and are taking risks every day.
Here in Malaysia, bank branches have a little more edge to them, with armed guards casually caressing shotguns and looking very bored – you don’t get that in sleepy Norfolk where I live when I’m in the UK. The point is that bankers adapt locally to the risk,
and balance it on how to mitigate the risk. A branch has the possibility of getting robbed – and the bank puts in compensating controls to reduce that risk – but short of never letting anyone in the branch it will always have the possibility of getting robbed.