Church credit institute

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A church-based credit institution is a bank with a denominational background. In Germany there are a number of banks in the vicinity of the Protestant and Catholic Church. They support church work by providing financial security for church and diaconal services and offer ethical investment opportunities.

Since the 2000s "church banks have been experiencing a downright boom," said Professor Udo Steffens from the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management in 2009.

Church banks in Germany

Most church credit institutions have the legal form of a registered cooperative (eG) and belong to the Volksbank and Raiffeisen Association .

List of church banks (staggered according to annual turnover):

Banks with a Roman Catholic background

  1. Liga Bank in Regensburg is one of the oldest Catholic banks in Germany and the only Catholic bank in southern Germany.
  2. DKM Kreditskasse Münster , one of the four Catholic banks in North Rhine-Westphalia.
  3. Bank in the diocese of Essen , one of the four Catholic banks in North Rhine-Westphalia.
  4. Bank for Church and Caritas in Paderborn , also works in accordance with ethical criteria, but is only available to selected private customers (who work in the church sector) and Catholic church-charitable institutions.
  5. Pax-Bank in Cologne , oldest church bank in Germany.
  6. Bank für Orden und Mission (a branch of VR Bank Untertaunus eG) in Idstein , Untertaunus, invests the money invested with it, taking into account ethical principles. It does not give loans. Part of the profit goes to the mission center of the Franciscan Order for specific aid projects for the benefit of people in need all over the world.
  7. Steyler Bank in Sankt Augustin also makes its investments according to ethical criteria. She works on the basis of the Frankfurt-Hohenheim guidelines and is a member of the Corporate Responsibility Interface Center association . Profits are used exclusively to support the aid projects of the Steyler missionaries .

Banks with a Protestant background

  1. Bank for Church and Diakonie eG - KD-Bank in Dortmund looks after around 7,000 institutions and 31,000 Christian-oriented private customers (as of 2012). The bank introduced a sustainability filter for securities investments that is oriented towards the goals of the conciliar process (peace, justice and the integrity of creation ). Other focal points of activity are the granting of loans for charitable projects in the area of ​​the Protestant Church and its diakonia.
  2. Evangelical bank emerged through the merger of
    1. Evangelische Kreditgenossenschaft Kassel (EKK) serves the churches in southern Germany.
    2. Evangelical loan cooperative in Kiel serves the north German regional churches.

Banks with a free church background

  1. Spar- und Kreditbank Evangelisch-Freikirchlicher Gemeinde (SKB) , founded as a bank of the Baptists in Germany in the 1930s, the bank grants loans to congregations, diaconal institutions and works in the Federation of Evangelical Free Churches in Germany KdöR . The bank now also works with municipalities outside the federal government.
  2. Savings and credit bank of the Federation of Free Evangelical Churches (SKB) in Witten is the savings and credit bank of the Federation of Free Evangelical Churches in Germany and as such is the financial partner of the institutions, works and affiliated municipalities of the federal government as well as their employees, members and friends. The SKB was founded in 1925.

Church banks and church finances

The German churches deposit a large part of their money in church banks. In 2001, Der Spiegel estimated the deposits of church organizations in religious financial institutions at a total of 42 billion Deutschmarks. The churches maintain church depots with shares and investment papers at the credit institutions.

Ethical investments in ecclesiastical banks

According to the information service AnlageABC, all 15 church banks in Germany can combine an ethical claim with the topic of financial investments. Against the background that financial investments are becoming more and more important with particular attention to ethical principles, church banks are also becoming more interesting for private customers. The volume of these systems in Germany has more than tripled between 2005 and 2012 and amounts to around 16 billion euros (2012).

Most church banks agree that they reject investments in the arms industry, nuclear power, pornography, tobacco and businesses that violate human and labor rights.

In August 2015 the international non-profit organization “Christian Finance Observatory” (OFCCFO) published a charter of Christian ethical finance in several languages ​​(French, English, Italian, Russian).

criticism

In the past, the implementation of ethical investment criteria by German church banks was often questioned. In 2009, Der Spiegel reported that the Catholic Pax-Bank had invested large sums in shares in arms and tobacco companies. The then CEO of Pax-Bank, Christoph Berndorff, confirmed the information and said that the bank would no longer invest in such companies in the future. The Pax-Bank, together with the Catholic League Bank, had invested almost 578,000 euros in the arms company BAE Systems . The globally active group with headquarters in London produces, among other things, nuclear submarines, missile systems and fighter planes.

Church banks in Austria

In Austria the majority of the Catholic Church owns the private bank Bankhaus Schelhammer & Schattera . It was founded as a private bank, but sees itself - after the Catholic Church became majority owner - as the bank of the Church in Austria.

Church banks in Switzerland

There is no church bank in Switzerland.

Banks with an ecumenical background

The ecumenical development cooperative Oikocredit arranges the investments of its members in the form of fair loans to companies and cooperatives in poor countries. At present, around 65 percent of the loans are granted to microfinance institutions, the other 35 percent are direct loans to companies, primarily in the fields of agriculture, food processing and small businesses.

Banks of the Catholic Curia

The Istituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR) (German Institute for Religious Works , commonly known as "Vatican Bank") is a bank owned by the Holy See . It is not formally a state bank of the Vatican City , although it also fulfills its tasks. In recent decades, the bank has come under repeated criticism within the church and in public for its opaque structures and transactions as well as power intrigues.

On September 23, 2009 Pope Benedict XVI. Angelo Caloia as President of the IOR and the entire Supervisory Board. In 2012 there were allegations of corruption against Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone (the “number two” after the Pope). The President of the Vatican Bank Ettore Gotti Tedeschi was sacked in May 2012. Gotti Tedeschi, who was considered an "expert in financial ethics", had been at the head of the Vatican Bank since 2009. The aim of the appointment of Gotti Tedeschi was to put the IOR on safe feet and to create more transparency as well as to comply with the regulations applicable within the EU to prevent money laundering . Gotti Tedeschi was not only considered an expert on "financial ethics", he was said to have good connections within the Roman Catholic Church and to Opus Dei .

In addition, the Vatican's financial authority is the Apostolic Chamber (Latin: Camera Apostolica) . In the Middle Ages, the Apostolic Chamber was the papal financial authority, but since Pope Pius X it has only been authorized to administer the property of the Apostolic See during a vacancy .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Wensierski: CHURCH: Discreet like Swiss banks . In: Der Spiegel . No. 49 , 2001 ( online - Dec. 3, 2001 ).
  2. ↑ http://www.ekd.de/aktuell_presse/news_2012_02_03_ethisches_investment.html epd according to KD-Bank information
  3. ^ The Charter . In: Christian Finance Observatory . ( christianfinanceobservatory.org ).
  4. ↑ Catholic bank invests - in contraception
  5. ↑ Patricia Arnold: "Vatican Bank: Head Rolls After New Revelations" , Neue Zürcher Zeitung , October 4, 2009
  6. ↑ Kordula Doerfler: “Bankers of God under Suspicion” , Frankfurter Rundschau , September 22, 2010
  7. ↑ Katharina Kort: “Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. The Banker of the Holy Father ” , Handelsblatt , September 27, 2010