Money is no longer a taboo subject for nearly 80% of French people, we learned during the first Barometer of the Meaning of Money, carried out in June 2021 by the Viavoice institute on behalf of Crédit Coopératif.
However, the relationship between the French and money remains complicated. The latest edition of this same study published before the summer revealed that 61% of French people admitted to not personally understanding how the economy and financial mechanisms work. And only 29% of French people say they know what their own bank was doing with their money.
For a majority of our compatriots, the bank must above all be as inexpensive as possible, attentive to their needs and requests, and be flexible in the event of financial difficulties… At the same time, they are increasingly many ask that their banks be attentive to their impact on the evolution of society.
Past abuses
If they primarily expect their banker to support their projects or be more flexible with them in managing their budget, a significant proportion also want them to contribute to the ecological transition or reduce territorial inequalities.
As the signs of climate change become more painful every day, the banking sector is an essential player in financing projects to combat the global warming that threatens us all. The road is long as we see that he is far from having abandoned his support for fossil fuels as was further shown by an article in Le Monde on November 1st which revealed that banks could still finance fossil fuels despite their commitments in favor of the climate.
Fifteen years after the subprime crisis, international finance has not learned all the lessons, to say the least, from its past excesses. “Worse, it has become even more enormous: the weight of all financial assets has increased from 220,000 billion in 2007 to 550,000 billion dollars today,” economist Jézabel Couppey-Soubeyran recently recalled in an article from Le Monde on September 15, on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of the American bank Lehman Brothers.
26.3 billion euros
Banks, funds and other asset managers remain largely devoted to financing growth at all costs, fossil fuel industries and speculation, she emphasized. “The major reorientation of their economic model towards financing the ecological transition and the unprofitable investments essential to it has not yet taken place. »
While waiting for global finance to make its adjustments, the average saver can, from now on, give meaning to their money by directing their savings towards the financing of projects that benefit society. In France, solidarity savings are becoming established in the landscape, in 2022, 26.3 billion euros on products supporting the social and solidarity economy. And the spectrum of investments continues to expand, ranging from sharing all or part of the remuneration of one’s investments with associations of one’s choice to investing in the capital of solidarity structures, including life insurance. or employee savings.
Can money have meaning? This is the theme of the event organized by Le Monde and in which Pascal Pouyet, general director of Crédit coopératif, Arnaud Zegierman sociologist, co-founder of the Viavoice institute, Paloma Moritz, journalist, director of the ecology division at Blast, Claudia Senik, professor at Paris-Sorbonne University and director of the Well-being Observatory, Marie Charrel, journalist at Le Monde, Patrick Sapy, general director of Fair, Lucie Pinson, creator of the NGO Reclaim Finance, Maxime de Rostolan, Managing Director of Sailcoop, and Jérôme Saddier, President of ESS France and Crédit Coopératif.