Last April, the UK's Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment introduced an additional requirement to sit the professional qualification exams for brokers and traders in the UK capital markets: approve an ethics test. In the wake of recent and varied scandals in this sector, the financial regulator's manager welcomed the news: "The financial sector needs to restore consumer confidence; high standards of ethical conduct are crucial to making this possible".

The test is an online test that consists of successfully resolving a series of ethical dilemmas. The goal is not so much to teach which behaviors are good as to transmit from the first moment a sensitivity and awareness of the ethical problems of the sector and the importance of solving them correctly. Is it possible to ensure the ethical behavior of this group by having C such a test?

It is more than doubtful. Given that the rest of the tests that must be passed in order to practice (more technical and specialized) are not done online, the aforementioned test puts entrance itself in another category, in the second division. Regardless of the complexity of the scenarios used, do we trust that candidates whose ethical sensitivity is called into question are going to take the test cleanly? Are they going to worry about getting to the bottom of the dilemmas to genuinely educate and refine their judgment, or are they (those who do) going to prepare themselves just to pass the test? Are they going to answer what they really think or what they think they are supposed to answer to look good? Also, as Victoria Camps would probably say, are they going to educate their emotions about it?

At final, do we take ethics seriously or do we pretend to? The issue is too important to take so lightly. Instead, perhaps it is better to do nothing. We citizens will prepare ourselves more thoroughly to further increase our distrust. It will be more practical and realistic. As may be happening in Spain, where the test, as far as we know, has not even been considered, although probably not for the reason we pointed out. Taking it seriously requires a real formative effort at an earlier age, something we are not doing in general. Until when?