The Monday interview: Paul Lynam, Secure Trust Bank If I think back to 1988 the vast majority of people had their banking exams. You would finish work at half five and go to college and study from six till nine. This is something Mr Lynam is attempting to put right at Secure Trust Bank where about a quarter of the staff are on what he calls "modern apprenticeships" with new recruits given time off during the day to study for their exams. It's the right thing to do. That emphasis used to exist and getting it back should be that difficult. But it does cost money. In Mr Lynam's view things started to go wrong for banks when they began to think of themselves not as mere lenders but as retailers. A look of deep pain flashes across his face as he contemplates the phrase "retail bank." That expression retail banking, what does that mean? Being a retail bank suggest that you are a seller of products so compare that to Apple. People queue up outside their stores because the products are so desirable. You don't see people queuing up to buy stuff from banks. What would a bank need to do to have people buying from it as opposed to hard selling to customers as we have seen," he says. Aside from the obvious point that queues outside banks have a rather less positive association in the public's mind than those outside Apple stores, recent mis-selling scandals, whether they be of payment protection insurance or interest rate swaps, highlight his point that something has gone deeply wrong in the way banks sell their products to customers. At the heart of this sales culture are bonuses and perhaps unsurprisingly, Mr Lynam is no fan of the annual City bonus round and is in favour of shifting banking's pay structure back towards annual salaries. Practising what he preaches, many staff making lending decisions at Secure Trust Bank have their pay tied directly to how their loans perform over time rather than simply being incentivised to stuff as much business on the bank's books as possible. "These guys make very wise long-term lending decisions because they know that if they make a dodgy loan it's going to financially hurt," he says. Equally with free current accounts, another popular bug-bear of regulators, Mr Lynam thinks the industry's current approach is flawed. It's an absolute barrier to people like us entering that market place. We couldn't provide a free-if-in-credit product because we couldn't make it work," he says, pointing out that the fees Secure Trust Bank has to pay other lenders to use some of their systems makes it uneconomic. Mr Lynam is dismissive of recent attempts to engender more competition, through the disposal of branches by Lloyds Banking Group and RBS, saying that capital rules make it impossible for smaller lenders such as Secure Trust Bank to make a competitive bid. You know before you start that you can't compete with the big banks so it is a complete waste of time and money. Following up with Mr Lynam after the collapse on Friday of RBS's planned sale of 316 branches to Santander UK, he repeats the point, though he does not rule out sliding the rule over a business he knows well from his days working at RBS. If Mr Lynam feels let down by the authorities in backing small banks, it is nothing compared to the scorn he heaps upon the British Bankers" Association and its recently departed chief executive, Angela Knight. The only communication I have ever had from Angela Knight was an email from her to say goodbye. I had never even said hello to her. I have never heard a squeak out of the BBA. When we floated the bank nobody got in touch and said well done, congratulations," he says. They are largely there for the benefit of the very large members. Discussing the Libor scandal gets Mr Lynam even more irate. It was an absolute, unadulterated disgrace. To betray people's trust like that is unbelievable. Ninety-nine percent of bankers do a good job to the best of their abilities. But there is a very very small minority of shysters who are only interested in themselves. Those people just need to be weeded out. I would be all in favour of tarring and feathering them. It makes my blood boil. With Mr Lynam in charge of Secure Trust Bank it looks like the lender is likely to live up to its name for some time.