It’s bad when a town loses its last bank but really we don’t need to be too sad about Cockermouth losing Barclays. Barclays has a long history of unethical investing from apartheid-ridden South Africa in the 70’s, through Amazon rainforest trashing in the 90’s to fossil fuel investing right now. Barclays is the biggest financier of fossil-fuel projects in the whole of Europe.
Let’s take its closure as an opportunity to move our money out of Barclays. But its no good just moving it to another high street bank. In 2022 alone, the five big UK high street banks - Barclays, HSBC, Santander, Lloyds, and NatWest - provided $37 billion to the fossil fuel industry which pays for a lot of new climate-wrecking coal mines, gas pipelines and oil rigs.
The suggestion for a banking hub for Cockermouth would be a great one if it didn’t include any of these, and did include some good banks. There is a campaign group called Bank Better, who have produced a campaign handbook which includes advice on which banks are good and which should be avoided. This applies not just to individual domestic accounts but also accounts for businesses and organisations. The magazine and website Ethical Consumer has information, too, on which banks are best.
Most of the recommended ones are fairly small and unknown. The Co-op Bank is probably the biggest and most well-known, which provides services for businesses and individuals. But we have our own Building Society on shopping streets in pretty much every town in Cumbria. The Cumberland Building Society has strong ethical policies: employs real people, uses 100% renewable energy, does not invest in fossil fuel businesses and gives 1.5 % of its annual profit to charity. Its ethical policies are listed in much more detail on its website.
The Nationwide gets strong recommendations by Bank Better. If you don’t mind a bank that is only online Triodos Bank scores extremely highly. The Ecology Building Society does what it says on the tin. The Charity Bank only lends to charities and social enterprises.
There’s a huge choice, these are just a few. We don’t have to let the bank decide what to do with our money. We can put our money where it does good not harm.
Cllr Jill Perry
