About financial trust and integrity

Sir, Henry Paulson is absolutely right when he says that “The key test of accurate financial reporting is trust” May 17, but he totally ignores the most fundamental origin of trust, which is being able to look someone in his eyes.

If something is needed now in terms of trust in the financial sector that would be to de-corporatize the auditing process, so as to allow us to find next to each auditing statement the name and photo of the responsible auditor, or the names of the jointly responsible auditor team, and who are all willing to be held accountable and responsible for what they say, and will not run and hide behind any anonymous corporate veil. When Paulson mentions that “our markets must retain the integrity” he seems to have forgotten that integrity is inherently an issue of personal responsibility, impossible to delegate.