Obviously raising money to help the poor is a wonderful idea, and the principle of tax levies to redistribute wealth is one of the core principles of a decent economy, but I think there are some major problems with it.

Firstly, it would require a globally-consistent tax regime, which would be extremely difficult to put in place. It would only take one rogue selfish state like Monaco to not sign up for every financial institution to suddenly move core operations there.

More fundamentally though, it still doesn’t get to the root of the problem, and may actually perpetuate the problems of global poverty. The 50p that banks would give for each transaction does raise a lot of money – but nothing in comparison to the profits that they continue to create out of highly complex derivative deals. These deals ultimately do not add stability to the economy, nor do they serve to trickle wealth down. They exploit information gaps so that those with inside knowledge have the power to make a lot of money through speculation.

Additionally, a tax on these sorts of trades may serve to validate them, and actually increase the amount of money being thrown at them. Similarly, it could reduce the amount of money bankers give to charity because they can claim to be ‘doing their bit’ already.

The intention is good: redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. I’m not sure this is the best way to do it because it fails to act at a systemic level. One might as well tax the thief who is stealing from you, and feel glad that you got some money back.

So, while the effort is to be applauded, I’m a little worried that the tag-line ‘be part of the world’s greatest bank job’ may actually be more true than Robin Hood might think…