The first Croatian ethical bank should start its operations by June.
Ethical banking model is coming to Croatia, mostly thanks to the Cooperative for Ethical Financing, which in the last financial year recorded a nearly threefold increase in the number of members. In 2016, the cooperative signed up as much as 175 percent more members than in 2015, which indicates the increasing confidence in the model of ethical banking, already well-known and developed in Western Europe, reports Index.hr on January 18, 2017.
After two and a half years of intensive work, the cooperative in October officially launched the licensing process with the Croatian National Bank, and the launch of Croatia’s first ethical bank is expected by June this year. “We are now just one step from the start of eBank. The results show that we have been able to build the confidence of Croatian citizens and businesses in the concept of the Cooperative and ethical banking. The ever-growing number of members demonstrates that our work has been recognized and that we have established ourselves as a system of confidence and the economic model which has successfully existed for many years in European countries. It is necessary to establish it in Croatia as well”, said Goran Jeras, manager of the Cooperative for Ethical Financing.
Last year, the Cooperative also implemented a number of successful projects, of which the most important ones are creating a system for supporting projects for rural and regional development, involvement in several projects of the Federation of European Alternative and Ethical Banks, the establishment of the Fund for Development of Social Entrepreneurship in Croatia, the establishment of the first network of youth cooperatives in Europe and many others.
The Cooperative, whose the main objective is to network and provide assistance to its members, is the founder of the Ethical Bank, which is in turn directed towards the creation of new values, through investments in community development and projects that are financially, socially and environmentally sustainable. Financing of all forms of entrepreneurship, creation of new jobs, providing education and healthcare, and restructuring of existing loan obligations are the main tasks of the ethical banking model.
