Publicly listed companies in every sector face an inherent tension in reconciling the interests of their customers with those of their shareholders. For financial companies, which all engage in some form of maturity transformation (by, for example, turning short-term deposits into long-term loans), the tension is more acute because the time-horizons of these two main stakeholders are more divergent.

And for assets managers, the problem is worse still: the holders of their shares may be looking to the next quarterly statement while the investors in their funds may be looking to retirement many decades hence.