CECA promotes sustainable and inclusive finance at the World Congress in Paris
Isidro Fainé, president of WSBI, of the 'la Caixa' Banking Foundation and of CECA. /
Isidro Fainé highlights the "feeling and acting in a socially responsible manner is linked" to the identity of these entities, at the meeting of the WSBI, the main savings banks and retail banks
The World Institute of Savings Banks and Retail Banks (WSBI), an organization that has CECA among its main members, has closed its World Congress (26th edition) in Paris with the focus on advances in matter of sustainable finances in the framework of the current complex situation.
During the two days of the meeting, its members approved the Declaration of Paris 2022, a backbone document that advocates promoting sustainable finance to guarantee the economic resilience of the communities in which they operate. That statement invites regulators to coordinate and harmonize different taxonomies by offering design principles that foster interoperability and mutual recognition. Such a measure can help promote sustainable cross-border finance as well as reduce compliance costs. Given the need for a common language, which facilitates comparability and avoids duplication of efforts, the EU-China Common Ground Taxonomy (CGT) is a promising first step in the right direction.
Isidro Fainé, president of WSBI, of the 'la Caixa' Banking Foundation and of CECA, opened the meeting stating that “feeling and acting in a socially responsible manner is inextricably linked to our identity. The fact is that we were born this way, it is part of our DNA, and it is our vocation. All this translates into our way of doing banking, which is fundamentally different from that of other players in the sector and, moreover, is profitable, efficient and fair" while addressing the more than 200 participants from all continents, who met in person in Paris for the first time since 2018.
The WSBI, created in 1924, represents more than 6,000 savings and retail banks from around the world whose total assets amount to 15.6 trillion dollars and serve nearly 2,000 million clients, offering financial services mainly to SMEs and families.
The Paris World Congress was held in the French capital on July 7 and 8 under the title 'Rooted in the community. Globally responsible', thus underlining the WSBI 3Rs model – retail, responsible and rooted – as a necessary strategy to build a more inclusive and sustainable society.
Leading experts linked to the financial world and from different jurisdictions discussed the main issues on the current economic and financial agenda: regulatory harmonization in sustainable finance; digitization and its impact on financial inclusion; and the wide scope of social responsibility in the recovery environments and geopolitical changes that currently coexist at the global level.
The ecologist and mountaineer, Reinhold Messner, who advocates a more sustainable development model and whose foundation helps mountain villages around the world to deal with the consequences of global warming and the negative impact of excessive tourism, gave a keynote speech on sustainable banking in times of climate change.
Among the prominent representatives of the international regulatory field were Mairead McGuinness, Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union of the European Commission, and José Manuel Campa, President of the European Banking Authority. For her part, the Secretary of State for Digitization and AI of the Government of Spain, Carme Artigas, has appeared via video. The director of Financial Studies of FUNCAS, Santiago Carbó, the director of Public Affairs of CaixaBank, Christian Castro, the general director of CECA, José María Méndez, and Shlomo Ben-Ami, vice president of the Toledo International Center for Peace and former Israeli ambassador in Spain have also attended this triennial meeting.
As a parallel event to the World Congress, the presentation of the Scale2Save (S2S) program took place, which, after six years of activity, will come to an end on August 31. This program, developed by WSBI in alliance with the Mastercard Foundation, has aimed to promote financial inclusion through the establishment of basic savings accounts in developing countries and financial education projects, thus overcoming the barriers faced by most of the population of these countries in access to financial services.
With over a million registered customers as of March 31 and a 20% monthly activity rate over the last twelve months, S2S exceeded its numerical commitment to reach one million customers. Thanks to its total budget of more than 16 million dollars, S2S managed to carry out successful projects in places such as Ivory Coast, Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda.
CECA is an active member of the international associations -World Savings and Retail Banking Institute (WSBI) and European Savings Banks Group (ESBG)- which represent the retail banking model that prioritizes financing for families and SMEs, a model with which member entities CECA feel fully identified.
The link between CECA and the WSBI responds to the task of representing and defending the interests of its associated entities, for which it is present in national and international forums. The WSBI helps savings and retail banks around the world prosper. It focuses on international regulatory issues that affect the financial industry and provides a platform for the exchange of knowledge between member entities.
The president of CECA and of the "la Caixa" Banking Foundation, Isidro Fainé, renewed his three-year mandate as president of the World Institute during the General Assembly held last November in Paris. Among the priority lines of work established then for the coming years are financial inclusion, the promotion of sustainable finances and the exchange of best practices in the implementation of the new solvency framework and innovation, seeking in digitization a tool to improve closeness to the customer. Now, the Paris 2022 Declaration reinforces this path established by the international organization a year earlier.
