Ethical Managemnt in Banking
Ethical Managemnt in Banking
Ethical Managemnt in Banking
IN BANKING
HISTORY
Historically banks have been viewed solely as financial institutions, which should
concern themselves with all things financial. Morality has not entered the equation.
This public view has allowed banks significant leeway with concern to ethical
standards. This is because they have not been associated with the actions taken by
the businesses they lend to. Banks have also stated that a reason for not mounting
the new challenges that sustainability presents is that such inspection would require
interference in the activities of clients. Jeucken 2002 However with changing social
demands, and as more is known about the effects that banks can have through their
lending policies, banks have begun to feel pressure from the general public,
NGOs, government's, and the like to go beyond conventional business
management. For example in the mid 1990s the Cooperative Bank asked 6,000
customers what their thoughts were on ethical banking; 84% responded that it was
a good idea.Harvey 1995 In fact the cooperative bank was formed in response to the
growing consumer base looking for ethically oriented banks.
INTRODUCTION
An ethical bank, also known as social, alternative, civic, or sustainable bank, is
a bank concerned with the social and environmental impacts of its investments and
loans. Ethical banks are part of a larger societal movement toward more social
and environmental responsibility in the financial sector. This movement includes:
ethical investment, socially responsible investment, corporate social responsibility,
and is also related to such movements as the fair trade movement, ethical
consumerism, boycotting, etc. Ethical banking is a juvenile sector within this
movement. Other areas, such as fair trade, have comprehensive codes and
regulations to which all industries that wish to be certified as fair trade must
adhere. Ethical banking has not developed to this point; because of this it is
difficult to create a concrete definition distinguishing exactly what it is that sets an
ethical bank apart from conventional banks. Ethical banks are regulated by the
same authorities as traditional banks and have to abide by the same rules. While
there are differences between ethical banks, they do share a common set of
principles, the most prominent being transparency and social and/or environmental
aim of the projects they finance. Ethical banks sometimes work with narrower
profit margins than traditional ones, and therefore they may have few offices and
operate mostly by phone, Internet, or mail.
Ethical banks cannot solely rely upon the legal system to determine whether or
not a potential client has acted unethically or whether or not their future plans are
unethical. This is because of the wide range of laws throughout the world. While a
business may be lawful in the international setting, this does not mean that the laws
were up to the moral standards in which the bank originates. For example,
extensive pollution and labor laws that would not be considered lawful in many
developed countries are allowed in many lesser-developed countries.
Ethical banking
Ethical banking provides direct finance through lending and risk capital to fulfill the
financial needs of selected entrepreneurs, organisations and businesses. The cooperative
movement from the beginning of the 20th Century is an example of how essential needs
can be fulfilled through forms of collaboration and mutuality in membership
organisations. Modern forms of cooperation beyond focusing on membership needs such
as the fair trade and microfinance movements, combining economic with social values,
are a step forward in the understanding and practice of brotherhood and solidarity in a
global economical context. Both the cooperative movement and the new social
movements from the 1960’s have developed a practice of ethical banking. Cooperative
banks and new social banks co-exist, while some mainstream banks have become aware
of business opportunities in this sector. Microfinance institutions focus their effort in
parts of the world where there is a high need for poverty alleviation. For a better
understanding it is useful to distinguish these tendencies:
Some social banks have been constituted by trade unions and have developed based on
These banks are quite different as to the volume of their operations – balance sheet totals
vary from EUR 30 million to several billions, and their financing capacity from EUR
50,000 to EUR 25 million per project. All together they are currently financing tens of
thousands of projects with added social value mobilising the savings of more than one
million people and institutions. Being still relatively small, these banking on values
institutions, have substantial growth rates, are professionalising and consider themselves
to be catalysts for social change. With these banks also succeeding in applying
outstanding internal organisation and staffing practices, and in developing specific
methodologies to properly deal with the ethical aspects of this type, they have a potential
for further qualitative development.
C. Microfinance banks
Microfinance is a methodology of banking for the unbankables (people without access to
finance), contributing to poverty alleviation through micro lending for income generating
activities of the poor themselves. Although this methodology is not new nor comparable
to the movement that was launched in Germany by Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen at the
end of the 19th Century (and later developed by credit unions), microfinance in its present
form received a tremendous boost from the Grameen approach in Bangladesh, designed
by the 2006 Nobel Price winner Professor Muhammad Yunus.
In 2007 there are approximately 10,000 microfinance institutions worldwide. Apart from
their contribution to economic development of millions of poor entrepreneurs, their
families and their communities, they are often providing basic education and methods of
community building. Some of these institutions have the potential to develop into full
social banks and are helped with support structures from the north such as Oikocredit,
launched in 1975 by the World Council of Churches, the Triodos Microfinance Funds
(1994 and 2002), ShoreBank and Shorecap International (1988 and 2003) and many other
institutions. Apart from Grameen Bank some of the most advanced microfinance
institutions are Brac Bank (Bangladesh and Afghanistan), Basix (India), Acleda Bank
(Cambodia), Mibanco (Peru), Findesa (Nicaragua), Compartamos (Mexico), Equity Bank
and K-Rep Bank (Kenya) and Centenary Bank (Uganda).
The financing of poor people’s entrepreneurship in the north requires different methods
compared to traditional banking due to the different social structures and the
predominance of individualism. Adie (Association pour le droit à l´initiative
économique) created in 1989 by Maria Nowak in France, is a good example of
collaboration between mainstream banks, government and non-governmental
organisations.
So long as microfinance institutions are able to integrate basic ethical values, going
beyond the mission of fighting poverty, and are able to connect local savings to local
borrowing and continue to get the support from northern development money, they have
potential for high quality development. New challenges however, such as the effects of
climate change, especially in the south, will require huge investments from the world
community pointing at the necessity of further social and environmental globalisation on
the planet.
d. Internal organization
The main objective of Triodos Bank is of an ethical nature – ‘With the exercising of
banking business, the company aims to contribute to social renewal, based on the
principle that every human being should be able to develop in freedom, has equal rights
and is responsible for the consequences of his economic actions for fellow human beings
and for the earth’5.
The voting rights at the Triodos Bank annual general meeting are exercised by the
Foundation for the Administration of Triodos Bank Shares (SAAT), and are guided by
the ethical goals of the bank thus preserving its identity.
Triodos Bank’s annual report6 has been formulated according to the Global Reporting
Initiative (GRI) guidelines since 2001 when it was the first bank worldwide to publish an
integrated annual report (social, environmental and economic). Since then, more than 50
banks worldwide have used the GRI guidelines7 for their sustainability reporting.
For reasons of principle, no share option scheme is offered to members of the Board of
Management, Supervisory Board members or members of SAAT´s Board of Trustees.
The Group is structured in an integrated way, both locally and internationally, with
business units covering specific activities. This helps the Group to consider the ethical
aspects of the business at each level of business and globally.
ETHICAL INITIATIVES
Numerous ethical banks (as well as some conventional banks) create initiates that
allow the banker to contribute to organizations that have positive
societal/environmental impacts either in the local community or in developing
countries. For example the Cooperative Bank (UK) offers customers "a free Home
Energy Rating on all house purchases, enabling them to better understand how
energy efficient a property is and how to make improvements. Additionally, all of
the bank's mortgages include carbon-offset features. Every year that a customer
holds a mortgage the bank offsets a fifth of the carbon dioxide emissions arising
from a typical household's energy consumption. Following customer consultation,
2003 offset monies were used for reforestation in Uganda, a Bangladesh project
which trains local people to build energy efficient stoves and a Bulgaria project
supporting micro-hydro electricity generation."Coro Strandberg 2005 Whereas the Citizens
Bank (Canada) allows its’ customers to choose between a variety of VISA cards
that benefit Oxfam Canada, Amnesty International or their philanthropic Shared
Interest program by donating $0.10 to not-for-profit initiatives worldwide every
time their VISA card is used. This enabled Citizens Bank to donate $24,800 to
Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières in 2007. These are only a few
of the wide range of services available at different ethical banks. Many also have
lower interest rate loans for low emission cars (ex. of low emission car initiative
put forth by Citizens Bank).
Quite early in history gold, reflecting the spiritual world, served artistic, religious and
economic goals, and was directly linked with the gods and their servants, the priests, who
organised its flow. Throughout medieval times Christianity set its laws on usury, Islam
set its rules on interest, and monasteries organised economic life in their surroundings,
working with investments and charitable actions in a moral and religious perspective. In
these times humanity was strongly organised around three realities: the spiritual world,
the world of nature, and local social entities.
Since the beginning of the 15th Century, natural sciences and later enlightenment,
gradually emancipated people from the world of the gods, nature and their local social
environment. The relationship between human beings changed with the growing
predominance of individualism.
This context and background of modern society are fruitful to the emergence of modern
ethical banking concepts and practices.
Freedom of thought, opinion and expression using reason and conscience are
leading to financing art and culture, education and research
Equal rights at a political and juridical level, the freedom and right of association
in a democratic society and the right to work are a basis for financing civil society
projects and for participating in the public debate about the benefits and
challenges of shared social responsibility
Ethics in banking
Banking and finance as a profession have an intrinsic value chain which is interwoven
with the cycle of providing adequate financial products and services. As long as there are
no bank guidelines or criteria on ethical, social and sustainability aspects, the individual
co-worker or the lending committee are generally applying the ‘neutrality rule’,
excluding ethical, social and environmental considerations from the bankers´ decision
making. In reality however, money is not neutral and it involves responsibilities from its
inception and along the distribution chain where it has to do with value creation, not only
pure financial value but also human, social and environmental added values.
Money, capital, intelligently and wisely invested as an instrument for improving quality
of life, can have a major impact on human development. Because of this impact, a neutral
attitude to investment and lending is irresponsible. In the financial markets, money and
money systems become mechanical and develop uncontrollable dynamics. Financial
regulators and authorities are only concerned with the mechanics of the system in order to
prevent major breakdowns. Is there an organisational design for money as an instrument
subservient to human development? What are ethical impulses and human qualities that
can be found in modern societies in both developed and developing countries and that can
be brought into the banking and finance process? Three possible impulses are described
below.
a. The impulse of brotherhood and sisterhood at interpersonal, local and global level:
‘Meaning’ refers to a constant quest for understanding, including the spiritual level.
‘Quality’ has to do with the added value that is the outcome of a search process where
choices are being made in life. How can investment and lending be directed to
meaningful positive action and be diverted from financing negative developments or
negative aspects of an undertaking? Can ethical banking be a method of constant search
and reflection on the meaning of human and economic value creation while putting its
findings into practice?
Standing in the middle of social and economic developments, bankers are well positioned
to have an overview and a feeling for what matters, although they assess risk versus
opportunities without considering social and environmental development. They generally
use this position to grow their business. They do not take this opportunity to transform
the knowledge they have acquired into wisdom that they could apply in developing
ethical banking policies and making fundamental choices.
Bankers’ observations of the needs of their clients and of society in general can lead to
inner reflection and understanding of the degree of importance of some development
questions. Conscious bankers can transform feelings of powerlessness into an
understanding that something can be done. Transparency of ethical banking operations –
showing what is financed – is a prerequisite for open dialogue with clients and civil
society. This dialogue can lead to a deepening of understanding of the phenomena and to
inspiration for adequate action to be deployed. When this perpetual process of
observation, reflection, mutual exchange, taking responsibility, action and reporting is
included in specific organisational forms, ethically working bankers will have developed
a valuable instrument that is not only serving the needs of their clients but will also help
to fulfill the needs of society as a whole. This description of ethical banking does not
refer to charitable action. It starts from the observation that altruism, or looking after
someone else, is part of economic life where division of labor and interdependency of
people are a basic principle of efficiency. Human needs are an expression of a healthy
egoism in an economic process dealing with the fulfillment of needs. Altruism in an
economic sense is not in contradiction with egoism but tends to equilibrate the economic
process.
Conclusions
Although private community and development banks, microfinance banks, ethical,
environmental and social banks and ethical funds differ in terms of focus, accents, clients,
products and business culture, they have in common to practice banking and investment
with a human development mission. The differences tend to be rather complementary
qualities that can be fertile in combination with each other. They are all delivering an
innovative and human value contribution to the value-neutral financial system.
Ethical banking as it has been described above stands in a historical line of continuous
search for the application of ethical principles in banking and is in line with broader
trends in the 20th and 21st centuries such as the emergence of civil society and the new
social class of cultural creatives, growing consumer awareness, social justice and
environmental movements and the growing recognition of social entrepreneurship, to
name a few.
Some questions require continuous attention:
Will this emerging financial business sector be able to achieve the relative scale and the
professionalism to challenge the dominance of mainstream finance? Will the exceptions
of the financial industry become the exceptional and a factor in modern society? Will a
profound way of dealing with ethical choices be overruled by the superficiality of
business development – also in ethical banking? Can ethical banking as a process with an
instrumental character avoid becoming institutionalised? Can ethical banking be a portal
for trust forces, morality and responsibility to feed money processes and the financial
system with basic values and practices that can be a counter power to uncontrollable
morbid growth?
Ethics are now more than ever a subject of personal choice, behaviour and responsibility.
At the same time, more and more people are individually looking for values to
incorporate in daily life. As contemporaries on their way, they are part of an ongoing
process of search and practice linking up and networking with other people, creating new
forms of social cohesion. Instruments such as ethical banking processes, products and
services and money as a subservient tool can be helpful.
It was not the intention of this paper to provide an in depth analysis and screening of
ethical banking practices but rather to describe the state of the art of an emerging
financial sector with the conviction that it could become a significant factor in society,
not so much in terms of volume but in terms human added value.
Frans de Clerck
Inspired by insights and publications from Wilhelm-Ernst Barkhoff, Rolf Kerler, Paul
Mackay, Peter Blom, Lex Bos, Henri Nouyrit, Christine Gruwez and collegues from the
ethical banking scene.
Frans de Clerck is senior advisor to the Executive Board of Triodos Bank Group, cofounder
of Triodos Bank Belgium and co-founder of the Global Alliance for Banking on
Values.