Politics & Current Affairs — September 12, 2011

Global Crisis Boosts Ethical Banking

The financial crisis and its excesses have spurned alternative banking initiatives. One of them is ethical banking, which stands for total transparency and invests only in the real economy.

bigthinkeditor

What’s the Latest Development?

The financial crisis and its excesses have manured a breeding ground where new initiatives are sprouting, aimed at revolutionizing the banking world, or at least at introducing a more ‘moral’ outlook. Among these is ethical banking, which statistics show is enjoying a sustained growth in clientele.

What’s the Big Idea?

Spain’s ethical banking sector, composed of just five entities and more than 50,000 clients, aims for total transparency. It only invests in the real economy, finances projects related to sectors such as renewable energies and ecological agriculture, and holds social justice to be its own particular Bible. Triodos Bank accounts for the bulk of ethical banking clients in Spain (45,000) and last year grew by 60 percent, attracting 9,000 new clients since the start of the country’s May 15 “indignation” movement.

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