Has banking deregulation contributed to the current economic crisis and if so how? Can advertising (or) marketing (or) public relations help restore trust in the banks?

Most of the world has been affected by what has been called the global recession. Banking deregulation is undeniably the main cause of the financial crisis. This essay is going to demonstrate why this is by covering key events, which have lead to the crisis, and highlighting some possible marketing solutions to the trust issue that has resulted from it.
The Great Depression in the 1930s provoked the US government to introduce new regulations in order to reform banks and ensure that there would never be another crisis of its type again. These reforms came under the name of the banking act of 1933, commonly referred to as the Glass-Steagle act. Crucially most of the new laws meant that retail and investment banks were to be kept separate and investments could not be made if a return was unlikely. However, over 50 years later these laws became more relaxed as the banks were always pushing to be privatized, as they knew they would be able to make more money (Robert Weissman, 2009). It was then believed that the financial world had changed so much since the Great Depression that the regulatory rules were outdated and that the banks would be able to manage themselves, the decision was also influenced by $300 million of lobbying (PBS, 2003). The Glass-Steagle act was revoked in 1999 by president Clinton, this removed the separation that existed between Wall Street retail banks and investment banks and meant there was a great deal less government regulation.

The UK deregulated its banks long before the US had revoked the Glass-Steagle Act. This happened under Margret Thatcher’s government in 1986, when new laws were passed and a set of deregulatory measures involving the London stock market resulted