By Gerolamo Fazzini
Between 2019 and 2023, Banca Etica’s direct funding saw a sensational growth, equal to +46%, while deposits and bonds from the customers of the remaining banks in Italy, in the same period, recorded a much more limited increase: +11, 9%. It is an emblematic fact and well summarizes the history of Banca Etica, which in 2024 passed the mark of the first quarter of a century. Even in times like ours, therefore, those who sow hope produce fruit: justice, respect for human rights and the environment and brotherhood. On our journey in the company of the Wayfarers of Hope, Credere interviews Anna Fasano who has been the president of Banca Etica since 2020, after having been a member of the Board of Directors since 2010. She recently signed the afterword to the volume The courage to count (Il Saggiatore): a collection of experiences of female protagonism, which break the cliché according to which women and finance belong to incommunicable worlds.
Since the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis has repeated: “This economy kills.” He then launched the initiative The Economy of Francesco, which involves two thousand young economists and protagonists of change from all over the world. What do you think of this process? Just wishful thinking or is something new coming to fruition?
«Pope Francis underlines that this economy kills, not the economy as such. In Laudato si’ finance is mentioned a dozen times. The tools must be governed: The Economy of Francesco was born from this suggestion. I see it as a significant opportunity for many young people who are asked to investigate an economic model that no longer meets the needs of sustainability.”
The Pope, in the bull of convocation, launches a cry in the name of the least fortunate on the planet and for the forgiveness of international debt. …
«His is an important provocation, because we have dismissed the debt relief of poor countries as impossible, while it is a central issue for building a future in the name of equity. In fact, a new international financial architecture is needed, which brings together the responsibility of all the actors, of those who forgive and those who benefit from the amnesty. In other words, we must avoid the creation of a new financial colonialism.”
Continues….
Read the complete interview with Anna Fasano by purchasing the issue of Credere on newsstands from Friday 27 December and in distribution in the parish from Saturday 28 December. Or purchase a digital copy www.edicolasanpaolo.it/scheda/credere.aspx
• This one with Anna Fasano is part of Wayfarers of hopea series of interviews with personalities from the world of the Church, culture and social commitment, in preparation for the 2025 Jubilee. This is a multimedia project which, in addition to the report on Credere, also includes the television version of this interview which will be broadcast on Telenova (Channel 18 of digital terrestrial in Lombardy and eastern Piedmont) on Tuesday 31 December at 11pm and Wednesday 1 January at 11am. The video of all the interviews (among others, with Gemma Calabresi, Don Luigi Verdi, Father Antonio Spadaro, Sister Veronica Donatello and Romano Prodi) is also available on the Telenova App and website (www.telenova.it).
