New charity calls for more sustainable banking

Britain’s banks must work harder to promote sustainable lending and business growth plans, a new financial charity has said.

FairBanking has issued a report suggesting ways in which private wealth management and other financial firms can improve the wellbeing of their customers.

These recommendations include imposing tighter controls on offering credit to consumers, encouraging young customers to save more and developing products and services which improve people’s ’overall control’ of their money.

The charity also criticised banks who pursued aggressive lending practices and unsustainable growth models in the run-up to the global credit crunch.

Two financial firms have been nationalised entirely and many others have had to be bailed out by the government as a result of the crisis, burdening the taxpayer with extra public debt.

Launching the report, Antony Elliott, director of FairBanking, said: ’The truth is that banks in the UK have been doing the equivalent of selling faster and faster cars to their customers without ever improving the brakes. The results of this have been self-evident.

’If the banks really do want to redeem themselves in the eyes of their customers, this study shows them precisely how to do it. It even provides a robust and entirely credible mechanism for the banks by which they can measure the improvement in their customers’ financial well-being, which they have helped bring about.’ADNFCR-2318-ID-19255732-ADNFCR