nxylas

I have just done a Google search for ethical banking over here, but all the hits it returned were pages from the UK, where it is a fast-growing sector of the finance industry. The stereotypical, knee-jerk reaction would be to say that Americans are simply too selfish to care where their money is invested, but I know perfectly well that is not true of all Americans, and so find it hard to believe that there would be no market for such services over here (though I am afraid that they may just be confined to the blue states, which wouldn't be much good for me). I am wondering whether I was Googling the wrong thing and there is a different name for it over here. Is there an American equivalent to the Co-op or Triodos banks, or the Ecology Building Society?

Eskimo

isnt this an Oxymoron ? (always wanted to say that !)

Lion in Winter

There's this lot.

http://www.socialinvest.org/

Try looking under terms like "socially responsible" etc.


It's pretty tricky to find "clean money", since the financial world is so interconnected.

Lion in Winter

That, too, was my cynical first reaction.

Big D

I know that the COOP pride themselves on this in the UK, but it is still fairly limited. I'm not sure that I would see it as a huge growth area?

nxylas

Lots of banks and building societies now give you the option of investing ethically, even if they don't qualify as "ethical banks" per se. Before I moved here, I was paying into three ethical plans from the Bristol & West (retirement, savings and disability insurance). And my sister used to work as a financial planner for Friends Provident, another leading ethical investor.

NC Penguin

Slightly OT but American financial institutions are now tapping into the Muslim population living in the US and their particular religious requirements about financial arrangements.

Back on topic, www.kiplingers.com, the financial mag's website probably has a section on "socially responsible" banking providers.




NC Penguin

Elvira

Check if there is a co-op anywhere in your locality. A co-op here is not part of a national chain but an independent, member-owned store that sells mainly organic and locally produced/grown products.

AFAIK, most co-ops are associated with a local credit union, and these usually are more ethically conscious than the big guys.

The down side is that they are less used to dealing with 'unusual' customers. If my experience is anything to go by, you can forget if you don't have a SS#