Comment: Ten months ago I was appointed chairwoman of Irish Life & Permanent plc, one of the largest financial services companies in the State. For this role, I come from what is certainly an atypical background - female, retail and marketing - and one of the questions I've been asked most is how I ended up as chairwoman of one of "those" companies.

The truth is that my experiences have brought home to me how similar, not how different, the financial services sector is to sectors such as retail and tourism.

The bottom line in both is that the customer is king. If you build the business around customer satisfaction, good value for money and innovative products, customer loyalty and profits will follow.

That thinking lay behind the decision by Permanent TSB to abolish all normal charges for its new current account product and, just as would happen with a comparable initiative by any high-street retailer, it's led to increased business. Some 5,000 customers in February switched their current accounts to Permanent TSB in response to the move.

The same principle has inspired Permanent TSB's decision to offer a low-cost credit card. The Ice card will be the first credit card in the Republic to have an interest rate below 10 per cent.

Much the same innovation that you would expect from any retailer is in evidence across the rest of the group too - Irish Life Investment Managers and Irish Life Retail in particular.

Where the similarities end, however, is the different attitudes that exist towards success and profitability in financial services institutions and other businesses.

That difference was highlighted last week when I was struck by the contrast between the supportive and sympathetic attitude everybody felt towards Intel when the Government failed in its efforts to give that enormously profitable company grant aid for its investment in Kildare and the extraordinary cynicism which attaches to the very idea that our indigenous financial institutions should make a fraction of that company's profits.

I share that supportive attitude towards the IT giants of this world. I'm just not sure why its proponents can't see that a profitable, innovative and ambitious indigenous financial services industry is at least as vital to this State's national interests as a profitable, innovative and ambitious multinational IT sector, perhaps more so.

Let's remind ourselves of some of the basics.

* The financial services sector employs more than 52,500 people across the State, with some 35,000 in retail financial services alone.

* The sector spends some €3.8 billion on wages, services and projects each year in Ireland.

* It contributes more than €1.5 billion in taxes to the Exchequer through a variety of taxes, including a unique levy imposed on financial service companies.

* The performance of the shares of its major institutions are the bedrock investments supporting the pension schemes of more than 850,000 people across the State.

* Its successful operation is the lubricant that ensures that the rest of the economy operates smoothly and efficiently.

Certainly, over the past few years, there have been a number of issues that have undermined the reputation of individual companies within the financial services industry.

But, in the same way that it would be wrong to blame all IT companies for the sins of a few, it's ludicrous to hold the whole financial services industry accountable for the problems of a few.

On the whole, I've found the industry to be extremely competitive and customer focused. I've been particularly struck by the sense of responsibility I've encountered amongst people at all levels of the industry. They are uniformly determined to ensure that the highest standards apply in all their dealings with customers.

However, I do believe that the relentless sniping and criticism levelled at the sector is beginning to have a corrosive effect. Some international investors are just beginning to ask why the climate is so unsupportive for our major financial institutions.

Part of the problem might be the absence of any national policy debate on the type of financial services industry this State should aspire to have. The last attempt at such a review was the Department of Finance/ Central Bank working group on strategic issues facing the Irish banking sector (August 2000).

Since then, an age ago in business terms, the only relevant policy interventions have been to add significantly to the regulatory burden faced by financial institutions and to impose a unique levy designed especially, it appears, to penalise our domestic financial institutions.

Policy vacuums are never helpful. Surely now would be a good time for policymakers and opinion leaders to sit down with the industry to try to map out an agreed vision for this critical part of our national economic infrastructure for the next decade.

A starting point might be whether the State needs or wants its major financial institutions to be indigenously owned or whether we'd be happy to be reliant on decision-makers in London, Berlin or New York to decide what lending strategy to apply to Irish consumers and businesses or how many branches to open in rural areas. Maybe that would encourage a more balanced analysis of the profitability of our banks.

Gillian Bowler is chairwoman of Irish Life & Permanent plc.