Suppose we define a banker as someone who facilitates the saving and exploitation of saved money in a manner that benefits the short and long-term community requirements.

The problem is that what you just described is not a Bank - it's a "Credit Union", or "Deposit Taker" (as they used to be called here in the UK).

If all Banks did was take in savings and lend them on, then there would be no "new" money = credit, and no development, either.

Banks create credit as a multiple of their capital base - essentially their Equity.

And doing so does indeed involve risk.

The problem has been that banks have been "outsourcing" that risk to a "shadow banking system" of investors through the mechanisms of securitisation, credit derivatives, credit insurance, and toxic mixtures of all three.

Now that the capital provided opaquely by these investors has gone, it's only governments who can replace it.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson