Ethical Banking

ScarletBea

I started a thread on that (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6410519/ethical-banks), but it was more information.
No actual comments received...

Malthusian

ScarletBea said:

I started a thread on that (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6410519/ethical-banks), but it was more information.
No actual comments received...

That's because you didn't accuse MSE - and by extension anyone who doesn't apply the OP's "ethical" filtering when they choose bank accounts - of being "irresponsible".
(You did get one comment.) 

gsmh

Section62 said:

gsmh said:

That leaves the likes of Nationwide as an acceptable near-ethical proposition.

What does 'near-ethical' mean?

It's so interesting that something I see so clearly others don't, and vice versa. I'm not going to create a definitive list of what constitutes 'ethical' in business. Most would accept it involves not investing in industries like fossil fuels, tobacco and the like, not supporting tyrannical regimes, being transparent about where the money goes and so on. If you look at the Co-operative Bank's ethical statement it pretty much says it all. Where ethics is concerned there are undoubtedly one or two issues one person would disagree with and another wouldn't. In my case Palestine. I support Israel, so an organisation choosing not to do business with Israel is a negative for me. Any ethical bank will be a package of ethical policies and actions and I would like to be able to agree with most of them, without any red lines. I don't think that my definition of an ethical business is that different from anyone else's to be honest.

Near-ethical in my head means I would agree with the majority of the ethical issues, but there may be one or two that either aren't there or a couple that shouldn't be there. It really isn't rocket science.

Having read the replies, and remembering previous discussions about ethics, I think where the cabal and I differ is that I don't include how a bank treats its customers in my definition of an ethical bank. I feel that's where we can make banking choices for ourselves. Triodos, for instance, is undoubtedly ethical but is a nightmare to deal with - no NFC payments, faster payments which take upwards of a couple of hours, a monthly charge - all deal-breakers for me. It would be wonderful to have an ethical bank which also has an efficient and caring service and gives customer a warm and fuzzy feeling to do business with. I understand the criteria applicable to ethical banking and all I'm saying is that a compromise is inevitably necessary.

If we're being transparent, I am of advanced years and about to receive my state pension

gsmh

eskbanker said:

You initially assert that there is some form of accepted standard definition but you then go on to make an entirely subjective assessment of the ethical credentials of a range of players, based on criteria that you consider relevant.  That's obviously your prerogative, but perhaps noteworthy that your criteria don't appear to coincide with those selected by that magazine - I can't see their results without payment but they seem to consider the important aspects to be:

Is it lending ethically?
Does it pay its fair share of tax?
Is it opaque about its investments?
Is it financing climate change?
Is it funding the arms trade?

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/money-finance/shopping-guide/current-accounts does go on to offer a detailed analysis of what ethical behaviour means to them - maybe you regard them as authoritative, but ultimately your assessment actually demonstrates the point that ethics are a personal issue.

Hopefully you can accept this as valid debate rather than perceiving it as some sort of personal attack!

I do subscribe to Ethical Consumer and my list of ethical banks in order is pretty much the same. Triodos at the top, followed by the Cumberland Building Society and then a bunch of banks which have pretty good ethical policies - Nationwide, Co-operative Bank (let down by its owners), Starling, Monzo, Metro Bank and so on. Right at the bottom we have Barclays and HSBC and just above them NatWest/Royal Bank, Lloyds/Halifax, Santander and so on. I can't see how I am somehow out of kilter. I have deliberately not given an authoritative list of ethics, that's not why I posted initially. All the points you mention would be on my list and on anyone else's too, if they were concerned about ethics. I don't see how you can challenge what I've posted - unless it's the notion of the cabal you object to.

eskbanker

gsmh said:

eskbanker said:

You initially assert that there is some form of accepted standard definition but you then go on to make an entirely subjective assessment of the ethical credentials of a range of players, based on criteria that you consider relevant.  That's obviously your prerogative, but perhaps noteworthy that your criteria don't appear to coincide with those selected by that magazine - I can't see their results without payment but they seem to consider the important aspects to be:

Is it lending ethically?
Does it pay its fair share of tax?
Is it opaque about its investments?
Is it financing climate change?
Is it funding the arms trade?

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/money-finance/shopping-guide/current-accounts does go on to offer a detailed analysis of what ethical behaviour means to them - maybe you regard them as authoritative, but ultimately your assessment actually demonstrates the point that ethics are a personal issue.

Hopefully you can accept this as valid debate rather than perceiving it as some sort of personal attack!

I do subscribe to Ethical Consumer and my list of ethical banks in order is pretty much the same. Triodos at the top, followed by the Cumberland Building Society and then a bunch of banks which have pretty good ethical policies - Nationwide, Co-operative Bank (let down by its owners), Starling, Monzo, Metro Bank and so on. Right at the bottom we have Barclays and HSBC and just above them NatWest/Royal Bank, Lloyds/Halifax, Santander and so on. I can't see how I am somehow out of kilter. I have deliberately not given an authoritative list of ethics, that's not why I posted initially. All the points you mention would be on my list and on anyone else's too, if they were concerned about ethics. I don't see how you can challenge what I've posted - unless it's the notion of the cabal you object to.

My point is quite simple - ethics are a personal matter and so there can be no authoritative list, especially given your own example of Israel/Palestine, where you accept that your views will be diametrically opposed to those of others, i.e. a factor that you consider to increase a company's ethical 'score' will decrease it for others.  Therefore it's unreasonable to expect sites like MSE to objectively rank the ethical stances of organisations, and hence they stick to facts instead....

gsmh

eskbanker said:

My point is quite simple - ethics are a personal matter and so there can be no authoritative list, especially given your own example of Israel/Palestine, where you accept that your views will be diametrically opposed to those of others, i.e. a factor that you consider to increase a company's ethical 'score' will decrease it for others.  Therefore it's unreasonable to expect sites like MSE to objectively rank the ethical stances of organisations, and hence they stick to facts instead....

Absolutely! There is no authoritative list, I've said that a few times in my posts. Authoritative suggests definitive. My view, to repeat what I've already said, is that an ethical bank is a package of good and less good policies. It is up to us to take a look, reject if there are any red lines, and if the package is generally acceptable go for it. You're making it far too binary.

eskbanker

gsmh said:

eskbanker said:

My point is quite simple - ethics are a personal matter and so there can be no authoritative list, especially given your own example of Israel/Palestine, where you accept that your views will be diametrically opposed to those of others, i.e. a factor that you consider to increase a company's ethical 'score' will decrease it for others.  Therefore it's unreasonable to expect sites like MSE to objectively rank the ethical stances of organisations, and hence they stick to facts instead....

Absolutely! There is no authoritative list, I've said that a few times in my posts. Authoritative suggests definitive. My view, to repeat what I've already said, is that an ethical bank is a package of good and less good policies. It is up to us to take a look, reject if there are any red lines, and if the package is generally acceptable go for it. You're making it far too binary.

On the contrary, I'm the one saying it isn't binary, i.e. whether an organisation is or isn't ethical, and that it's all a matter of personal opinion, so it now seems that we agree on this, but my intervention initially stemmed from your suggestion that there was some sort of consensus as to what constitutes an ethical stance, prior to your acceptance that there are varying subjective views (such as the polarising Israel/Palestine issue that you brought up):

gsmh said:

You will find that there are not many on here who consider ethics to be very important. They skirt the issue by claiming there are many different ethical stances when most of us know exactly what we mean by ethical banking.

born_again

ScarletBea said:

I started a thread on that (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6410519/ethical-banks), but it was more information.
No actual comments received...

Interesting that people are interested in wanting ethical banking, yet are quite happy to accept a bribe to join them. 🤣

TBH. ethical banking is a very niche market. Most people are more interested in a return on their money. 

gsmh

eskbanker said:

On the contrary, I'm the one saying it isn't binary, i.e. whether an organisation is or isn't ethical, and that it's all a matter of personal opinion, so it now seems that we agree on this, but my intervention initially stemmed from your suggestion that there was some sort of consensus as to what constitutes an ethical stance, prior to your acceptance that there are varying subjective views (such as the polarising Israel/Palestine issue that you brought up):

I think we broadly agree, but you seemed to be suggesting that since there is no authoritative list it's not worth thinking about ethical banking. Every time I've posted about it you have turned up to disagree. Keep thinking about that package I mentioned. As an ethical consumer, if you find 80-90% of what a bank says ethical, and as long as there are no red lines then that's fine.

I taught geography last term and one of the topics for year 8 (12/13 year olds) was 'What is an Ethical Consumer?'. There was nothing there which anyone would consider controversial and it was trying to get the students to think about what the companies they buy from are involved in, whether they use sweat shops and so on. We discussed issues like Nestlé encouraging African mothers to buy their formula milk rather than breast-feeding, the designer brands they buy and child labour, the fact that successful eco brands like Ecover and Lliy's Kitchen have been bought up by large unethical companies leaving the consumer unaware. The topic is part of the National Curriculum and nowhere are these ethical considerations disputed - not ever, not even by the companies involved, which is why they try and hide these things.

eskbanker

born_again said:

Interesting that people are interested in wanting ethical banking, yet are quite happy to accept a bribe to join them. 🤣

I'm not sure that the intersection in the middle of that Venn diagram (customers of ethical banks and those actively seeking 'bribes') is particularly significant, so that sounds like a generalisation, unless there are any stats that clarify?

born_again said:
TBH. ethical banking is a very niche market. Most people are more interested in a return on their money. 

Perhaps, but that doesn't render discussion of ethical banking superfluous, and it shouldn't be a mutually exclusive choice of one or the other anyway....