By FETS, Barcelona, January 24, 2023

FETS present the Ethical Finance Scanner that allows to measure, for the first time, the degree of compliance with ethical principles in the financial sector.

The tool promotes a critical and conscious use of money and allows differentiating between the discourse and the real practices of financial institutions.

The Observatory of Ethical Finance has developed a pioneering methodology with which, based on measurable indicators, it identifies the harmony between different elements of the operation of a financial institution and the 5 principles that define Ethical Finance. From public and verifiable sources, such as lists of public institutions or research groups, or the financial institutions themselves, up to 15 indicators have been chosen that allow analyzing aspects such as their financing policies, the governance model, access to information or their daily functioning. Weighting the information of each of the indicators, the methodology extracts the degree of compliance as global as for each of the principles. To make this information more accessible to all citizens, the methodology has taken the form of the

Ethical Finance Scanner

, a website that presents the results in a graphic and understandable way and allows you to check the result of the entity itself.

Greenwashing campaigns

And other strategies to project an image of social sensitivity are increasingly common, and the financial world is no exception. These methods to attract an increasingly critical and informed citizenry are a problem: both for truly committed entities and for consumers. The objective of this new tool is to offer an objective analysis of the real practices of the entities, contrasting it with the advertising messages.

Despite having numerous and varied backgrounds, what we know today as Ethical Finance has its origin in the 60s of the twentieth century, in the United States and northern Europe. Anti-war movements began to build financial structures that ensured that their savings were not used to fuel wars. In Spain we find first experiences in the 90s and from the 2000s the options grow and with them the numbers of customers, savings and loans multiply, as collected by the Barometer of Ethical Finance.

The Scanner is organized according to 5 principles, which despite the evolution and nuances introduced, connect with this historical legacy and are shared in different international networks of Ethical Finance. They are the following: the principle of exclusion, which guarantees that projects that violate human or environmental rights are not financed. The principle of Commitment, which ensures that savings go to the real economy and have a positive impact on people and the environment. The principle of Transparency, thanks to which the information and data of the entity and its operations are accessible. The principle of participation, which requires a democratic decision-making system. And, finally, the principle of Coherence, which implies transferring these values to its operation, for example in the treatment of customers or workers.

More information: Gonzalo Candanedo Fernández // comunicacio@fets.org  //618049902