Finance Watch

Identity card

Finance Watch is a non-profit international organization created in 2011 to to counterbalance the powerful lobby of the financial industry. Its mission is to reinforce the voice of the society and have it weigh in the decisions of reform of the financial system. The members of Finance Watch include groups of the civil society as well as indivudal experts, and are supported by a dedicated team.

The citizens and their representatives have to act together in order to stop the influence and intellectual domination of the financial industry lobby. Finance Watch wants to share this vision with the public at large, the legal authorities, the political decision-makers, the researchers, the think tanks, the medias and the economists, as well as tomorrow bankers and companies CEO.

Objectives

Finance Watch would like to see:

• banking systems that are resilient and effective, directing credit to productive use without extracting economic rents or transferring credit risks to society, and

• financial markets that encourage productive investment in the real economy and discourage excessive or harmful types of speculation.

According to Finance Watch, the followinf measures are essential steps in this perspective:

• reduce the overall level of financialisation of society

• reduce the costs of intermediation by the financial industry

• build a resilient banking system that serves society and is not founded on moral hazard (including under a Banking Union)

• raise awareness of the policy implications of credit- and money-creation by the banking sector

• build a financial system geared towards sustainable investing

• limit excessive speculation, such as commodity speculation and high-frequency trading

• channel savings into sustainable long-term investments in the real economy

• regulate the financial sector effectively

• protect the interests of the general public

• restore ethical behaviour to the actors of the banking and financial sectors.