Help me find an ethical bank in the US please!

March 28, 2007 7:24 AM

In the UK I banked with the Co-op Bank because of its ethical policies. Now I live in New York and I want to open a US checking account with a bank with a similar ethical outlook, so my money (such as it is!) doesn't get used to finance bad stuff. Googling doesn't show up anything similar apart from the Common Good Bank which isn't actually open yet. So who should I use ethical Mefites?
posted by merocet to work & money (8 comments total)

Social Funds.com has a list of community-based banks and the products they offer. In general, in the US, this sort of thing is called "SRI" (socially-responsible investing) and also "community banking" (banks that are focussed on community development and putting the money to work in low-income communities).
posted by teaperson at 7:44 AM on March 28, 2007

I use a co-operative, member-owned federal credit union (FCU) in my town for the same reason. NYC has a number of similar co-ops:

- Brooklyn Cooperative FCU
- Neighborhood Trust FCU (upper Manhattan)
- Union Settlement FCU (East Harlem)

You can also search for more at the National Credit Union Administration. Under the "Type of Membership" box, just choose "00 Community Credit Union".
posted by ourobouros at 7:52 AM on March 28, 2007

Here's a second for credit unions, which put the dividends back into members' hands, rather than in executives' and stockholders' hands.
posted by heydanno at 7:58 AM on March 28, 2007

This fancies-himself-ethical but committed-capitalist Mefite uses the cheapest/highest-interest-paying bank possible (currently Citibank, for his usage patterns). Why would you pay the cost of screening for social responsibility when whatever money you loan a socially-repsonsible company is just increasing the supply available to socially-irresponsible companies, thus driving down their interest costs? Besides, the social-responsibility screen is skin deep; the owner of Joe's Organic Mud Farm may be using the loan to buy Lockheed stock. Even if it's spent on organic dirt, some of the money will eventually flow to socially irresponsible companies.

Better to take the extra money and give it to charity, I say, but that's just my ethical system.
posted by backupjesus at 8:23 AM on March 28, 2007

Amalgamated Bank of New York, "America's Labor Bank" -- also the only no-minimum-balance free checking account in New York City the last time a checked (a long while ago).
posted by gum at 9:19 AM on March 28, 2007

I don't know if they're the only one, but as of today they still have that free checking account.

The Union Square branch has moved around the corner, if you're looking for it!
posted by bink at 4:47 PM on March 28, 2007

Because money is fungible, I don't think this is really possible with a consumer bank or credit union the way it is with stock-market investing.

In the stock-market, socialy responsible investing funds don't buy ownership stakes in pornographers or arms dealers or whatever you and they happen to be against.

A bank makes it's money (or you make your money if it's a credit union and the depositors are the shareholders), by loaning out the depositors' money. (Islamic banks work differently).

While they can choose to avoid loaning money to certain kinds of businesses, the U.S. has a has a negative savings rate. If your bank issues credit cards, mortgages, car loans or whatever there's probably something immoral people are borrowing that money for no matter what your moral perspective.
posted by Jahaza at 10:45 PM on March 29, 2007

OK, well I tried with the Amalgamated Bank of New York.

Stood in line to open my new account, and stood, and stood, and stood, and stood, and stood, and then the nice Indian lady behind me in the queue asked one of the staff (who had been roundly ignoring us all for 30 minutes) when we were likely to get served and got a grumbling scowling answer about not having enough employees, so I walked out and went to Citibank across the road and got served immediately. I'll investigate again later once I've got the rest of the immigration stuff sorted out!

Thanks for all your help though people.
posted by merocet at 9:08 AM on April 6, 2007