Ethics: true point of value for the Co-operative Bank

On BBC 4 Today programme, the new CEO of the Co-operative Bank Euan Sutherland mentioned that ethics was one of two points of value for the Co-operative Bank (the other one was turnaround), when asked about why the venture capitalists were interested in investing a 70% stake in the company. The management team have ensured that their values and ethics are written into the Articles of the bank to protect its key point of differentiation. It will be interesting to see how all this plays out over the long term when the demands of a new and dominant stakeholder start to bite.