Just look at the news items: evictions, bailouts paid with public money, corruption cases, fraud like the preferred ones… If you ever had it, banks, savings banks and traditional financial institutions have long lost a good reputation. And behind everything, a question. Are they, or at least senior officials, responsible for the economic and social inequalities that the crisis has widened?

Cristina de la Cruz Ayuso is a professor at the University of Deusto and an expert in ethical finance. As you said, the financial institutions have their responsibility for the economic crisis and its consequences, but the original problem is structural. “Traditional financial institutions are the development currents of capitalism and we can say that they are responsible in this sense, but neoliberal capitalism is responsible for the crisis.”

Liher González Bilbatua also agrees. He is a member of Koop57, which offers ethical and solidarity financial services. “Until now, it has been argued, like all other areas of capitalism, that the financial system should function better without control measures.” It says that finances affect all sectors and that the effects of their failures have therefore spread to the whole of society.

Alternatives as a political tool

Beyond the financial institutions that we can describe as “common”, there are alternatives set in motion with the aim of leaving behind speculative logic and promoting a different model of society: ethical finance. They offer the possibility of deciding what will be used to promote own savings.

It is clear from the Cross that those working in the field of ethical finance are political projects: “From practices, they intend to democratize financial relations by developing new ways of generating social power.” In this regard, it has underlined the instrumental nature of such projects, as funding is essential in the development of the transforming social economy. But he says there's more to it than that. “As in other aspects of people’s daily consumption, ethical finance proposes an economic militancy to transform society, because the use of our money can help to follow the economic system or, on the contrary, help to establish alternative models that are fairer, fairer and more supportive”.

Participation and transparency as a basis

After the name of ethical finance there is not only an ethical perspective, there are several that differentiate it from the traditional financial logic.

specific characteristic. One, of course: what and why is it funded. According to Liher González, instead of doing business, the transformation is financed to boost it, and those who bring their savings do not do so for profit. This is reflected in the conditions to be met for obtaining loans. Although each project has its own criteria, NGOs, small cooperatives, etc. are generally supported. They work in social transformation. On the contrary, the loan is denied to initiatives that are merely intended to obtain economic benefits. In addition, the partners who support these ethical financial institutions, in addition to being aware of all loans, have the possibility to participate in decisions.

De la Cruz, although in other words, refers to similar characteristics: “Ethical finance tells us that to reverse financial intermediation it is necessary to build on a network of people and institutions that approach without seeking economic profitability; that wages must be limited between management positions; that customers know what happens to their savings; that transparency must be guaranteed throughout the entire trajectory of money; that operations that seek exclusively economic profitability and invest in certain areas …”.

What hinders the way?

More than one thought: if the advantages are so obvious, why do most of us still have our savings in the usual institutions? Or, as proposed by the French movement StopBanque and former footballer Eric Cantona, why don't we get all that money out of the way?

The numbers show that there are few who have made such decisions: In the Spanish State, for example, 90% of deposits and loans are available to the six large banks. These data were provided by the Valencian economist Joan Ramón Sanchís in an interview with the Association of Consumers of Banks and Savings Banks of July 2015.

Liher González thinks it has to do with not wanting to leave our comfort. “We make a way to the will of capital, and if we want to break the model we have had, we have to start changing our customs.” It also says that ignorance is a reason, because many people do not know that there are financial instruments of this kind.

Joan Ramón Sanchís himself attributes it to the lack of knowledge: “Ignorance generates mistrust, but there have been ethical banks in Europe for 50 years and they have shown that they are as socially and economically viable.” But to all this adds another reason, the lack of physical offices. Now that we have become accustomed to finding traditional ATMs anywhere, ethical financial institutions that provide banking services operate mostly through cards or networks.

Despite this, more and more are taking the step every year. Between 2008 and 2014, for example, the ethical banks of the Spanish State multiplied their savings by six in the whole of Spain.