Ethical bank accounts?

shining4

Hi I know the interest rate of ethical savings accounts is a lot less than ordinary banks but I was wondering if anyone knows of any ethical bank accounts with higher interest rates? the bank accounts I know of that are ethical are cooperative and triodos right now but I was interested in finding more.

Im all for not supporting the arms trade and pharmeceutical companies (which many of the mainstream banks appear to do) which is why my current account is with the cooperative. However for future reference I would like to make money on my money yet not support the companies that I have concerns about.

Any thoughts?

Many thanks
Kelly

chinbergs

I'm afraid I don't know of any better, but good for you for choosing ethical. Would be nice to find out there are even better ethical products out there...

LongTermLurker

shining4 wrote: »

Im all for not supporting the arms trade and pharmeceutical companies

Arms trade I can understand, but are you not into supporting companies that develop new drugs to treat cancer, parkinsons, and god knows what else? If not for the pharmas, we'd all be dead.

runciblespoon

Most smaller building societies can be viewed as reasonably ethical, since the majority of their funds are used for mortgages. Everyone's view is different, but many would say that helping people have a roof over their head is more ethical than arms dealing.

BTW, don't just look for 'ethical' branded institutions, look for those that state what their policies are and whether you agree with them. 'Ethical' means different things to different people, and there's lots of marketing spin out there. Decide what it is you want to support and find the best institution that does that, whether it claims to be ethical or not.

asea

The Coop isn't a particularly 'ethical' bank although it markets itself as such. I have a friend who started work in a call-centre. The job that they were given was to call up people who already had borrowed money from them & to encourage them to borrow even more. My friend questioned this, was not given a satisfactory response & so left on ethical grounds & is a lot happier now (working for a company that doesn't prowl on the vulnerable).

LongTermLurker

runciblespoon wrote: »

Most smaller building societies can be viewed as reasonably ethical, since the majority of their funds are used for mortgages. Everyone's view is different, but many would say that helping people have a roof over their head is more ethical than arms dealing.

I'm dubious about any mortgage lender being branded as "ethical". Any company who is/has been willing to lend someone 5, 6 or 7 times their salary for 30 or 40 years has to have their morals questioned. The only ethical building societies, imo, would be any that still apply strict lending criteria to the local/domestic market.

shining4

Thanks everyone really helpful.

runciblespoon wrote: »

Most smaller building societies can be viewed as reasonably ethical, since the majority of their funds are used for mortgages. Everyone's view is different, but many would say that helping people have a roof over their head is more ethical than arms dealing.

BTW, don't just look for 'ethical' branded institutions, look for those that state what their policies are and whether you agree with them. 'Ethical' means different things to different people, and there's lots of marketing spin out there. Decide what it is you want to support and find the best institution that does that, whether it claims to be ethical or not.

Thankyou, thats is just what i needed to hear as when searching online I 'was' just putting ethical into the search engine.

Im relatively new to understanding money and this is something I want to gain further knowledge on instead of being a finance virgin .

shining4

LongTermLurker wrote: »

but are you not into supporting companies that develop new drugs to treat cancer, parkinsons, and god knows what else? If not for the pharmas, we'd all be dead.

Well... thats a whole other discussion for me about my personal thoughts on the pharma industry which is probably not something I want to share right now but thanks for your question.

brightonman123

my a/c is very ethical.. as in no effing money left!

Mr_Mumble

A chart of the big banks:

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/07/04/14327/

runciblespoon

Some links for background reading (mostly for investments, but should be useful if you're a beginner):
http://www.eiris.org/
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/ethical/
(have a read of some of the reports and policies for the sorts of decisions they take)
The Co-op group's voting records

Be aware that the ethical business is something of a minefield - there'll always be someone saying 'You hypocrite - you claim to be ethical but you're doing XYZ!'. I don't think ethical businesses have any illusion that they're perfect, but try to take positive steps in that direction. After all, perhaps the most ethical thing would be to do nothing questionable at all. But then they might not attract any customers and go bust. Which wouldn't help to increase the ethicality of the world.

Of course everyone's view of ethicality is different (as we've seen on this thread), so they might also be in the unenviable position of having one group of customers saying 'you're evil, you do XYZ!' and another saying 'isn't it great that you do XYZ!'. You can't win 'em all.