Form-Based Practices and Counter-Conduct in the Banking Industry*

Abstract

This paper adopts a governmentality framing to examine how form-based practices and counter-conduct measures that permeate the banking industry are employed by bank executives who wish to be governed differently in a way that results in the control of customer conduct. Using the data set of the HSBC Case History Hearing released by the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on July 17, 2012, the paper shows how rationalities, programs, and technologies of governance are reproblematized, resulting in changed program policies and technologies. The study also makes two contributions to the literature. First, the paper contributes to our understanding of form-based practices in the banking industry as a governance mechanism—specifically, how particular practices such as risk management, staff training, and customer training can be coupled with counter-conduct to circumvent the rules. And second, by looking at rationalities, programs, and technologies, the paper suggests how executives problematize issues in a manner that leads to program changes and to changes in the governmental technologies that depart from the overarching rationalities of the industry.