Italian Banking system winks at non-profit world. As someone may think, this is not a dangearous union of conflicting subjects with different origins and purposes. It is, rather, a return to origins for a banking system that seemed to have lost its initial aim. Mario Draghi, the former Governor of the Bank of Italy, writes, “The support to aid and charitable initiatives is deeply rooted in Italy. The first banks created at the end of the Middle Ages, indeed, pursued especially charitable purposes.” In a very few years, we have witnessed the strong development of banking services dedicated to Third Sector organizations.
Thanks to innovative services, the concrete needs of associations, foundations and cooperatives are now satisfied and the economic and human development of the territory is supported as well. Many services are available and they address to both non-profit organisations and their supporters who, with their savings, can contribute to the realisation of projects of social interest, preferring them to other dangerous types of investment.
As far as non-profit organisations are concerned, banks have adopted special assessment systems and criteria, which take into account the characteristics of non-profit world, such as the fundraising capacity, the success of projects financed by other institutions and the internal governance. A new chapter of the assessment system of social company has started.
If banks are currently considered as one of the main causes of the current economic crisis, now common citizens and Governments ask them to play again their original role and promote the economic and social development on a local level. The most striking example is represented by the United Kingdom where Prime Minister David Cameron has launched the bank of Big Society in order to boost social investments, thanks to the money coming from the so called dormant accounts and the support of the four major commercial banks of the country.
In Germany the first social and ecological bank, the GLS, was created in 1974. It aims at financing projects of social interest and between 2009, defined as the year of the crisis, and 2010 its budget increased by 37%. As for Italy, since their creation in the early 1990s, banking foundations have been required by the law to support voluntary work activities and initiatives of public interest.
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