Finance in an age of austerity
Subtitle: the power of customer-owned banks
By: Johnston Birchall
Publisher: Edward Elgar
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Cheltenham, UK
Language: eng
Number of pages: 235
ISBN-13: 9781781951835; 9781782544890
Subjects: Cooperative Banks and banking; Credit unions; BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Banks & Banking; BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economics / General; Kreditmarkt; Kapitalmarkt; Fiskalpolitik; Finanzkrise; Bank
Description: "This is a book in search of an alternative to the discredited investor-owned banks that have brought the rich countries into crisis and the world economy into a long period of austerity. It finds customer-owned banks - credit unions, co-operative banks, building societies - have hardly been affected by the crisis and continue to operate according to their organisational DNA: low-risk, close to the customer, underpinned by real savings, and still lending to SMEs to protect jobs and local economies. They are big business - in some countries with over 40% of the market - but networked in smaller, democratic societies whose origins go back to 1850s Germany. The book explores their history and current situation, measures the impact of the banking crisis, makes a systematic study of their advantages, compares them to alternatives (savings banks and micro-finance institutions), and investigates their supervision and governance structures. It provides hard evidence for the superiority of customer-owned banks." -- Back cover.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-228) and index.
Table of contents: title: Abbreviations; title: Acknowledgements; title: Introduction; title: The evolution of cooperative banks; title: The evolution of credit unions; title: The evolution of mutual building societies; title: The evolution of banks owned by other types of cooperative; title: The performance of customer-owned banks during the crisis; title: The comparative advantages of customer-owned banks; title: Some alternatives: savings banks and micro-finance institutions; title: Regulation, governance and the need for member participation; title: What motivates members to participate?; title: Customer-owned businesses- the wide picture; title: Conclusion: a cooperative counter-narrative; title: Appendix- a note on terminology; title: Bibliography; title: Index.