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Ethical banking
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An ethical bank, also known as social, alternative or sustainable bank, is a bank concerned about the social use of its investments and loans. Although there are differences among the main ethical banks, they share a common set of principles, the most prominent being the transparency and the social or environmental aim of the projects they finance. Some of them are specialized in microcredits.
Ethical banks are regulated by the same authorities as traditional banks and have to abide by the same rules. They have to be distinguished from ethical institutions that provide certain banking services but do not meet the legal definition of bank.
The name of "ethical bank" is somewhat controversial, because what is "ethical" or not is subjective, and also because it seems to imply that the other banks are not ethical. However, it is the most extended denomination.
Ethical banks usually work with narrower profit margins than traditional ones, and therefore they tend to have few offices and operate mostly by phone, Internet or mail. An extreme case of this is Smile (a branch of Co-operative Bank), the first ethical bank that operates exclusively by Internet.
- Grupo Financiero FINSOL (Mexico)
- GLS bank, Germany
- FEBEA, European Federation of Ethical and Alternative Banks
- INAISE, International Association of Investors in the Social Economy
- Rudolf Steiner Foundation (USA)
- Common Good Bank (USA)
- Co-operative Group ethical policy smile bank