Bankers who fail to come up to scratch should be "struck off" in a similar way to poorly-performing doctors, a consumer group urged today.
The call from Which? to force bankers to meet more rigorous standards to help prevent further mis-selling scandals came as it found that only one in 10 people believes that bankers are well-regulated.
Two-thirds of people (67%) think that bankers are unlikely to lose their job if they lie or cheat and only one in 10 trusts bankers to act in the best interests of the customer, a survey of more than 2,000 people across Britain found.
Only politicians and journalists were held in even less esteem and those surveyed were more likely to mistrust bankers than estate agents, builders or lawyers.
Which? has launched a campaign called Big Change, which is calling for bankers to be forced to comply with a code of conduct similar to that used by the medical profession.
The consumer body said that in the worst cases, those who fail to comply should be stopped in their tracks in the same way that doctors can be struck off the medical register for the most serious patient complaints and not allowed back to work.
People working at the most senior levels should also have to gain qualifications and training in ethical behaviour and in resolving conflicts of interest and more should be done to claw back bonuses in the event of a mis-selling scandal, Which? said.
Around two thirds of people surveyed believe that under current conditions bankers are unlikely to lose their job if they fail to comply with industry codes of conduct, deliver consistently poor service or receive a high number of customer complaints.
Customer confidence has been rocked by the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI), which is predicted to become the biggest consumer financial scandal of all time.
Around £10 billion has been set aside by banks to cover claims being made by people who were sold insurance they did not want or need.
Banks have been trying to rebuild their reputations following a spate of incidents such as Barclays' Libor-fixing scandal and the IT meltdown which hit NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank customers.
Last week, the new chairman of Barclays told the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards joint committee that that banks must prioritise reputation over profits to tackle cultural problems within the industry.
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Sir David Walker, who will succeed Marcus Agius as Barclays chairman from November, signalled an overhaul of pay policy at Barclays was on the cards as he suggested a restructuring of remuneration was needed.
Which? executive director Richard Lloyd said: "We thought we'd seen banking at its lowest point when the public were forced to bail out the banks but since then we've seen the Libor rate-rigging scandal and continued mis-selling. All the while the bankers who presided over corruption continue to enjoy hugely inflated pay and bonuses.
"Consumers are continually being short changed - we need to see Big Change in banking now. Customer service should come before sales, standards and ethics must improve, and bankers must be held to account. We want banks for customers, not bankers."
People can support the Big Change campaign by visiting the Which? website.
Here is the proportion of customers who said they trusted various professions, followed by those who said they did not trust them:
1. Nurses, 82%,4%
2. Doctors, 80%, 6%
3. Teachers, 69%, 7%
4. Engineers, 56%, 6%
5. Lawyers, 35%, 30%
6. Accountants, 29%, 28%
7. Civil servants, 25%, 27%
8. Builders, 19%, 35%
9. Estate agents, 11%, 51%
10. Bankers, 11%, 65%
11. Journalists, 7%, 67%
12. Politicians, 7%, 72%
A spokesman for the British Bankers' Association (BBA) said: "Banks are fully aware that they need to restore customers' trust and that this can only be done by proving that they are on the customers' side.
"There is absolutely no room for bad behaviour and the industry is committed to ensuring that codes of practice and ethics are rigorously upheld and that customers' interest are put first.
"There has already been a huge amount of change in the industry: new regulations to increase banks' strength, more protection for depositors and changes in top management."
The spokesman said remuneration is under much greater scrutiny and performance payments have to be deferred to ensure they reflect future value to the business, and the amount that can be paid in cash is strictly limited.
He said: "There is more that can and will be done. There is a genuine commitment from the top of the banks to restore the reputation not just of the industry, but of London as the world's leading financial centre."