Paul Tucker, the deputy governor at the Bank of England - and the man tipped to succeed Sir Mervyn King in the top job - has called for senior bankers to change the way they are paid.
Speaking at the British Bankers' Association conference in London on Wednesday, Tucker said senior executives at banks should be paid using subordinated debt - a type of debt which is only paid off after the majority of other creditors.
This, said Tucker, would mean "if your bank fails, you won't have much wealth left".
He also called for junior bankers to be paid in ways that are at least tied to the "medium-term success of the firm".
In 2009, the Royal Bank of Scotland's former chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin faced enormous amounts of public ire after it was revealed that he would pocket a substantial pay off and a pension of more than £340,000 a year, even after RBS was forced into the hands of taxpayers on his watch.
He was originally awarded more than £700,000 a year for his pension, but reduced it after he moved to France.
Tucker also gave his backing to the idea of separating retail and investment banking, but also separating wholesale domestic banking from wholesale international banking, in a bid to improve transparency.
He also called for greater competition amongst business banks.
"In 2007, nearly half of business banking was owned by (banks) which were subsequently owned by RBS and Lloyds - why did we find ourselves in the position where so much was in the hands of just two institutions?" he said.
When questioned by Reuters Breaking Views' Asia editor Peter Thal Larsen on how the industry could do that, Tucker struggled to answer, merely stating that reducing barriers to entry for new banks would help.
On his views of regulation and supervision, Tucker noted: "We, the authorities, try to put finance in a box to keep it safe, sound and honest. Capitalism, being what it is, takes us to the edges of that box... and then we have to move the box."
He also stressed that it was important for the wider world to be prepared to let banking regulators act to "take away the punch bowl" in future if it looked like the industry was steering towards another crash.
"We need that legitimacy from society, which is why the latest scrutiny committee is so important," he stressed.
When questioned further on how people could trust that the regulators would act before another crisis, Tucker responded by saying: "The market has to think about our incentives too; we don't want to go to the head of state and say...all of the regulations and supervision didn't work...and to ask for money - that's pretty damn powerful."
He also encouraged investors on the buy side to ask more questions of their firms to put pressure on them to make sure they are 'resolveable' or safe.
Finally, when discussing future hurdles, Tucker warned there was a "tangible possibility that the worst may still be ahead", and said there were still questions over whether assets were being marked down properly.