The Archbishop of Canterbury – the UK’s bastion of moral rectitude – has come forward and presented his two pence on the financial crisis. His conclusion? Bankers have failed to repent.

Banking executives’ muttered apologies in front of an MP select committee last year looked less than convincing – more chastised schoolboy than penitent confession box – and the swift return to what looks like being excesses in bonus payouts has angered Dr Rowan Williams.

He said on the BBC’s Newsnight: “There hasn’t been a feeling of closure about what happened last year. There hasn’t been what I would, as a Christian, call repentance. We haven’t heard people saying ‘well actually, no, we got it wrong and the whole fundamental principle on which we worked was unreal, empty’.”

While it would be easy to slate his choice of words as religious tub-thumping from someone who doesn’t understand the industry, he said society was “intimidated by expertise” and that there was room for “awkward amateurs” in examining how the City operates.

Does he have a point? Moving away from the religious connotations of the word ‘repent’, has the financial world actually learned anything from the crisis? Will it change the way it operates, or is it back to business as usual in double quick time? Is more self-reflection needed?

Your thoughts please…