Financial Times columnist and academic Professor John Kay and anthropologist Joris Luyendijk look at the culture at the heart of the City and argue that it is time for change in the financial world.

Kay and Luyendijk discuss what they see as an alarming culture at the heart of the UK’s financial system. They look at what has gone wrong and argue that it is time to put an end to banker bashing and to encourage reform from within. And they warn that the politics of today could be sending us back to the light-touch regulation that was behind the 2008 financial crisis.

Kay is author of Other People’s Money: the Real Business of Finance. He says he believes in good banks and effective asset managers, but they are not what he finds in today’s financial world. He argues the finance sector spends too little time looking for new investment opportunities and looking after its existing ones and too much time secondary-market dealing in existing assets. Kay is visiting professor of economics at the London School of Economics and a fellow of St John’s College, Oxford. He is a director of several public companies, writes a weekly column in the Financial Times, and is author of nine previous books, including with Mervyn King The British Tax System.

Luyendijk is author of Swimming with Sharks: My Journey into the World of the Bankers. He is an anthropologist and knew little about bankers until he was assigned to investigate the financial sector for the Guardian. He spoke to more than 200 hundred city insiders at all levels and uncovered what he says are the perverse incentives at the heart of the City. Luyendijk has also written three books about the Middle East, including Hello Everybody.

Discussions will be chaired by FT Weekend editor Alec Russell.