Non profit
Promoting social responsibility through bank activities
A German bank is working for the social commitment of enterprises (and of bank account holders)
di Staff
Ensuring loans to socially responsible businesses at better rates than they could get from mainstreams banks.
This is what the Gemeinschaftsbank für Leihen und Schenken (GLS), a German social bank, does.
How? By offering current account to German citizens, but with the catch that no interest is paid on their money. So that the interest itself can be used to offer loans to socially-committed enterprises, David Ainsworth of Third Sector magazine reports.
The rest of the banking sector has taken a big hit in the credit crunch, but GLS enjoyed double-digit rises in its net profit in 2008.
Malcolm Hayday, head of UK social lender Charity Bank, says GLS is typical of Europe’s superior social banking sector.
“There are much larger institutions in Europe than in the UK,” he says. “In the UK, we’ve spent a lot of time looking at American models, and sometimes haven’t been so good at seeing what’s on our doorstep in Europe.”
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