The story
In March 2009, eleven ethical banks formed a global alliance to strengthen alternatives to the crisis-shaken conventional financial model. The new network was launched in the Netherlands, and ABS was a founding member of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values. The members also include Bangladesh (BRAC Bank), Peru (Mibanco), USA (ShoreBank Corporation), Germany (GLS Bank) and Mongolia (XacBank) comprising, as of 2009, about 12,000 million Swiss francs assets and seven million customers in 20 countries to form the Global Alliance. Its goals include solidar economic cooperation, long-term action and responsible income.
ABS offers to their customers a bank account to support microfinancing, the so-called Oikocredit-Förderkonto in co-operation with international partners. To provide this account, in November 2016 the Netherlands-based Oikocredit announced partnership with ABS. Oikocredit is thus financing partner organizations in over 70 developing and emerging countries. These, for example, grant small loans to women to build up self-employment or loans to small businesses. ABS jointly promotes sustainable development and guarantees the balances on the promotion account to the same extent as for a savings account.
By 2012, the balance sheet had grown by 10% to 1,120 million Swiss francs. The profit rose by 55% to nearly 6 million Swiss francs in 2012. 90 employees take care of around 33,224 customers as of 2014. Thus, in the national comparison the ABS is a small bank; in comparison, the Raiffeisen bank has a total assets of 15,500 million francs, 3.5 million customers and about 8,000 employees. 44% of the ABS management positions are staffed with women, which represents an extremely high rate in Switzerland.
From Wikipedia’s article on Alternative Bank Switzerland, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4