From 1999 to 2004 Maartje van Putten served as a member of the World Bank's Inspection Panel. Using personal experience and extensive interviews with principal decision-makers and stakeholders in the Panel's work, she chronicles the history of accountability in the World Bank and other major financial entities. Describing how formerly secretive financial institutions have been slow to accept responsibility for the consequences of their investments - especially the problems that can result from projects in developing countries - she shows that financing institutions can cause significant social and environmental damage and argues that new accountability mechanisms are necessary to reduce or prevent such damage.Because such institutions operate on a global scale, only semi-judicial accounting mechanisms can provide the necessary accountability. It is time for the private financial sector to follow multilateral financial institutions in creating independent mechanisms, mediation procedures, and access to decision makers for people harmed or potentially harmed by projects financed by their institutions. "Policing the Banks" is a passionate plea for global accountability for all powerful financial players - including the transnational private banks that are now entering the scramble for profits from development projects in the third world.