Banks will take a generation to change their behaviour, researchers warn Retail banks have set aside £38.5bn for fines and compensation since 2000, and have received 20.8m complaints since the financial crisis, according to the New City Agenda think-tank, founded recently by politicians David Davis MP, Lord Sharkey and Lord McFall. However, initiatives at the smaller challenger banks such as borrowing customer service ideas from the leisure industry were highlighted as encouraging signs. Most people we spoke to told us that real change will take at least five years. There was some uncertainty as to how these changes were being translated into good practice at the customer coal face. Many culture change initiatives are fragile, and their success is not ensured," said Professor Andre Spicer, the report's main author. The research, carried out by Cass Business School on behalf of the think-tank, was based on documents and interviews at 11 banks and 16 other organisations. "It is clear that much more needs to be done by all stakeholders for trust to be restored in our financial institutions, and this report sets out clearly how banks are trying to do this and where improvements clearly still need to be made," said Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who contributed to the parliamentary commission on banking standards in 2013. The biggest banks must ringfence their retail and investment banking operations by 2019. The report urged investors to be patient while the banks adapt to these reforms in order to avoid crowding out cultural changes with demands for quicker progress. The researchers also claimed that greater competition would not necessarily solve the cultural problems within banks, pointing to the rivalry on some products such as PPI that simply fostered mis-selling. The Competition and Markets Authority is investigating the dominance of the big four banks and could recommend breaking up the largest companies.