Banks across the world have failed to reform, and they need to stop thinking about the bottom line too: The Head of the International Monetary Fund pulled no punches about the events since the collapse of Lehman Brothers back in 2008. And when she talks people listen.

Christine Lagarde addressed an audience in Tokyo explaining what she sees as the way forward to prevent any more crises akin to Spain's recent bailout and Britain's own rate-rigging scandal.

She said "Are we safer today than at the time of the Lehman Crisis? I would say not quite yet. Banking institutions, financial institutions in general have to concentrate on what is their core business, which is to finance the real economy. They have to be supporting not destabilising the economy, back to function instead of disfunction, back to service and not exclusively profit, forgetting about service"

Strong words and let's hope our own banks are listening hard. She also went on to say that the IMF's global growth forecasts have gotten worse these last few months and warned that next one (schedule for July 16<sup>th) will be even lower than previous forecasts.

On the Eurozone, Lagarde said better integration of the region is the way to solve its big problems. A monetary union, a banking union, followed by a fiscal union' she said. Not sure how much The Chancellor George Osborne will agree with that idea though.