Ethical banks in Europe: three times better than systemic

The report compares the performances of the 23 European ethical and sustainable banks with those of the 15 European “systemic” banks as listed by the European Banking Authority (EBA).

The survey’s results leave no doubt: in the last 10 years – while systemic banks were hardly trying to recover from the 2008 financial crisis – ethical banks kept growing and showed better performances also on the side of returns: from 2007 to 2017 they obtained three times more returns than systemic banks, with an annual average profitability (in terms of ROE) of 3,98% compared with 1,23%.

The event in Brussels had also the aim to ask the European Parliament to integrate the current proposal for a taxonomy of socially responsible investments (which is mainly focussed on the “E” of ESG, i.e. “Environment”), with social criteria.

During the meeting, the president of SfC Aurélie Baudhuin (Meeschaert Asset Management) has presented the network to the EU politicians, stressing the important of social issues in its engagement activities.

The 2nd report “Ethical and Sustainable Finance in Europe” is available here.