The following is a summary by Tony Weekes of the ‘Finance for a Fair Future’ workshop he led at Eco-Congregation Ireland’s inaugural conference:
It’s not an easy subject to present or participate in. Many people feel that something with ‘finance’ in the title will leave them overwhelmed. Others feel despair, seeing financial services run by completely unscrupulous people, driven only by greed and large bonuses.
But we cannot leave it at that. Our modern, complex societies need financial services just as we need telecommunications and public transport. The imperative for our time is to move to a renewable, lower carbon based economy. In turn, that requires institutions which can place our personal savings and the reserves of our churches to where they can meet this need, and in a way which limits risk.
The fact that Ireland has two jurisdictions and two currencies adds to the difficulty. Residents of the sterling area (Britain and Northern Ireland) have access to a number of finance companies and institutions which can meet this requirement; the Irish Republic is presently something of a desert in this respect.
We began by looking at the work of the Ethical Consumer Research Association, whose recent report on banks and banking provides summaries of the ethical positions (insofar as each has one) of a number of (largely British-based) banks. There’s some good news there. The Ecology Building Society, Triodos Bank, and the Charity Bank come out well. There is cause for unease about the conduct of the Royal Bank of Scotland (and its subsidiary, the Ulster Bank).
We looked briefly at the Reliance bank; a London-based bank, fully compliant with financial service regulations, offering a full range of retail banking services and guided by the principles of its owners: the Salvation Army. Not many people know of it, but its services are open to all, and it welcomes enquiries. Its customers can be anywhere in the UK but it does not trade in the Irish Republic. How often we had to note that in this session!
The time is overdue for another Cleansing of the Temple. People in Germany and the Netherlands have a much better choice of ethically-driven financial services. The Dutch ASN Bank and the German GLS Bank (among others) have descriptions of their work (in English) on the internet. Nothing will change until we – as citizens – start to press our governments and financial service regulators for constructive reforms of banking. To do that, we have to be better informed and more confident in explaining what is required and providing the evidence that it can work.
I offer encouragement (and help, where possible) to take this task forward. My e-mail address is [email protected].
From 1970 Tony Weekes was a member of staff in the department of economics in the University of York. In 1993 he resigned his appointment to work as an independent writer, lecturer and researcher. From 1986 until 1999 he was also a non-executive director of the Ecology Building Society. Since moving to Belfast in 1999, he has attended South Belfast Quaker Meeting and is a founding member of EcoQuakers Ireland. His present concerns centre around the question ‘What is the economy for?’ and the development of awareness of the need for ecologically and socially responsible financial services.