For anyone interested in finance and how financial institutions interact with their customers, the current furore surrounding the banking sector is a fascinating spectacle.

A fine old row is taking place in the UK, with politicians practically queuing up to lambast the banks for their excessive remuneration and inability to show sufficient contrition following the near-collapse of the financial system in 2008. Banker-bashing is becoming a cross-party sport, with the normally City-friendly Conservative party joining Labour politicians in calls for banks to show more restraint in their pay policies.

The latest announcements on bank bonuses are now headline news. Last week, The Independent, one of the UK’s more serious papers, devoted its entire front page to the bonus payments at Goldman Sachs. The sense of outrage was further stoked up by the takeover of Cadbury by US food manufacturer Kraft. Here banks were criticised for their role in encouraging and profiting from take-over deals that only rarely create shareholder value. The open market in UK companies, compared to the protection given by foreign governments to their corporates only added spice to the arguments.

And in the last week, President Obama has raised the stakes with a call to split banking activities, in what looks like a modern version of the US Glass-Steagall Act that separated commercial and retail banking. Obama’s intervention hit share prices and is a sign of the need for reforms in the financial system so that it cannot be threatened by excessive speculation and short-sighted thinking, as it was in the financial crisis. While the crisis was spawned by the trade in the subprime property by complex derivative-based structures, this business was driven by the competitive instincts of the big banks.

As a number of experts have observed, we now have a problem with banks that are ‘too big to fail’ and developed economies, such as the UK and the US, which cannot afford to go through another banking crisis. Hence the need for regulation and the public anger at the continuation of what is seen as excessive remuneration at the taxpayers’ expense.

From a PR perspective, the banks seem to need to learn some humility. Perhaps their chief executives are unused to taking criticism and don’t know how to respond. They are certainly more used to being courted by politicians than having to win their support. By being so out of touch with the prevailing mood, the big banks are risking a more onerous regulatory burden than might otherwise be the case.

A case in point is the current talk of banks and other highly paid City workers moving offshore, to places such as Geneva. Some mobile staff will no doubt do this. But many will not want to swap London for Geneva or Frankfurt and rather than foot-stamping and issuing threats, it would be better for the bankers to work harder at understanding the public mood, explaining the value of what they do and finding ways to reduce the instability of the financial system.