Ethical business banking?

thermidorthelobster

Nonetheless, should the company be successful, I'm profiting from doing harm to others, and I'm not comfortable about that.

InsideInsurance

thermidorthelobster wrote: »

I spoke to my local Handelsbanken (Plymouth) and they were polite but didn't want my business account, although I'm not a current account holder with them.

As I say, my experience of dealing with them was that they only take on vSME when the person will also be a personal lines customer.

If you meet their personal lines requirements then it may be worth talking to that side of the house and see if they do the same

SurfKing

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

This always baffled me. The extraction of oil helps get the average working man to his place of work. The pious Co-op wouldn't support them.

Another moral judgement. I'd be intrigued to see examples.

There is an insanity in, for example, wind power. While I have no objection to the development of the technology if you take it to the nth degree you would need to cover over 40% of the UK with windmills to replace traditional energy sources. And then have alternatives sat idle waiting to kick in when the wind drops.

I bet they picked their councils by political colour.

And then closing them with their "three strikes and you're out" rule.

A commercial decision that was cheaper than opening the hundreds of branches that they needed.

I struggle with the Co-op. They tell you they're different, but they still paid the top man an obscene amount of bonus, mis-sold PPI, repossess houses when push comes to shove, have had some of the most mediocre products of all banks when it comes to price rarely offering great value for customers and due to accounting incompetence (or criminal negligence) lost hundreds of millions of pounds many years ago and forgot to mention it until now nearly destroying the wider Cooperative movement.

Apart from that, they're a shining model of ethics and perfection.

As I stated in my post, ethics mean different things to different people. The points I made are what attracted me to the Co-Op, they're in line with the way I think financial companies can potentially be a positive force in the world. I think investing in alternative energy technology is a good thing, and I'm quite happy for my bank to invest in councils by their political colour as long as it's in line with my political colour - although the Co-Op has business with councils of all colours. If you disagree, then that's your right. You should evidently go with a different bank.

Herbalus

I have a feeling you're going to be disappointed with your enquiries to find an ethical bank, so allow me to suggest an alternative. Pick the best interest paying account, and split the interest you get with a charity. That might negate somewhat the feeling that you're profiting from harmful investments.

My dad once had a Christian aid credit card which gave them 0.25% of what he spent, until I pointed out he could get a 3% card (when it was available) and manually give them 1.5%.