The time has come for a tax on financial transactions, one of the five candidates fighting to be the next Labour leader said.
Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, argued such a measure would ensure the banks would be seen as contributing to tackling the country`s budget deficit.
Mr Burnham made the call at a Labour leadership hustings in Glasgow on Sunday afternoon.
And he told the audience there that there were times when it appeared as if the Labour government had "put big business before people" and had been "seduced by power, money and glamour".
Diane Abbott, one of the other leadership hopefuls, also supported a tax on international financial transactions, along with "dividing the ordinary retail banking chains from those investment banks that gambled internationally and we as the taxpayer had to bail out".
She complained that "within the Westminster bubble bankers became venerated above all else" and added: "We need to leave that adoration of bankers behind."
Meanwhile, Mr Burnham told the meeting, which was attended by more than 500 people, that Labour "at times gave the impression that we put big business before people, and we were seduced by power, money and glamour".
Shadow education secretary Ed Balls hit out at the coalition Government`s plans for public spending cuts, branding this a "deeply deflationary mistake" that could put thousands of jobs at risk.
He said: "I think we`ve got to fight, fight, fight and say what they are doing is dangerous, deflationary and the wrong solution to our country`s problems."
And Ed Miliband, the shadow energy secretary, hit out at the gap between rich and poor, telling the meeting: "I`m campaigning for a living wage and for a high pay commission to deal with the excesses at the top."
