Clive Adamson, director of supervision at the Financial Conduct Authority, believes the idea of "doing the right thing" has been lost in financial services.
Speaking at the CFA Society UK Professionalism Conference last week, Mr Adamson said firms have only viewed customers as "somebody to maximise profit from" rather than having a desire to ensure a good outcome for the customer.
This has led to a tick-box approach to regulation and compliance without concern for the consumer.
He said the new conduct regulator would be ensuring responsibility for the right outcome was a task for everyone.
"The responsibility for ensuring the right outcome for customers resides with everyone at the firm, led by senior management, and not something delegated to compliance or control functions."
This would involve the chief executive setting values and principles which would then translate into business practices that drive how decisions are made. However, there would need to be checks that this was being embedded into the day-to-day operations of the firm as well as at the top of the firm.
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Finally, although there have been problems with bonuses and incentives, Mr Adamson said it was important to reward employees for ensuring the right outcomes. This could be done via promotions or performance management.
In order to encourage this cultural change, Mr Adamson said the FCA would be encouraging positive cultural change.
He said: "We will increasingly, as I have indicated, draw conclusions about a firm's culture and reflect that back to firms as part of the firm's risk assessment process. Where we believe cultural measures expose the firm to a high level of risk in the context of our objectives, we will expect the firm to take account of it.
"We will be placing greater emphasis on individual accountability as well as corporate accountability for meeting our standards and we will be more prepared to hold these to account when things go wrong."

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