Co-op turned away £100m on ethical grounds

THE Co-operative Bank turned away almost £100m of business for ethical reasons, it has revealed.

Details of the business foregone by the bank for ethical and environmental reasons have been published in its annual ethical audit report.

These included 20 finance opportunities which conflicted with the bank’s ethical criteria on human rights and the arms trade; 16 companies which breached its guidelines on environmental impact, for example through supporting oil and gas extraction, and four which breached its animal welfare policies.

Deals it turned away included finance for missile equipment to go to oppressive regimes, banking services for a cleaning products manufacturer that continued to test on animals and lending for the development of two new UK coal mining operations.

The bank also reported that an additional £800m of finance was provided to UK businesses during the year, taking its total lending to £8.3bn.

The audit report showed that the bank significantly increased its support for UK businesses that have a distinct ethical, environmental or co-operative purpose, with these businesses accounting for more than half of its commercial deposits and a quarter of loans and overdrafts.

Tim Franklin, chief operating officer at The Co-operative Financial Services said: “These figures clearly demonstrate that there has been no relaxation in the implementation of the bank’s Ethical Policy and we continue to turn business away that conflicts with our customers’ concerns.

“Despite these actions, the bank’s corporate business goes from strength to strength with a growing proportion of corporate customers coming from sectors that make a positive contribution to society.
 
“The value of this policy was underlined by the flight to trust we witnessed following the credit crunch, leading to a 38% increase in new current accounts opened.”