All banking should be ethical, all of the time

The Co-operative Bank, an ethical lender based in Manchester, has extraordinarily loyal customers. Why, you might wonder, is having loyal customers so extraordinary? Well, in the case of Co-op Bank, you could hardly blame them if they took their accounts elsewhere.

The fact so many have stayed put, despite the bank’s spectacular fall from grace, might well have something to do with the paucity of other options on offer. There’s a screaming need for an ethical alternative to the bonus-hungry greed of the mainstream banks, who all too often treat their customers with contempt.

Before it ran into the rocks, it seemed as though the Co-op Bank fitted the bill.

But then it made the fateful decision in 2009 to embark on a disastrous takeover of the Britannia Building Society. The takeover was meant to create a ‘super-mutual’ – a financial institution run on co-operative lines for those sick to death of the antics of the Big Four: Barclays, RBS, HSBC and Lloyds.