Fair Finance
Watch is a Non-Governmental Organization Focused on the Fairness of the Financial Services
Industries - Banking, Insurance and Securities - to Local Communities, Urban and Rural,
North and (Global) South, including under Human
Rights Laws
FFW researches, documents and advocates around financial firms' activities, and how
they affect local communities. The profiles below are in-process -- For or with more
information, contact us
-- including at
this conference.
Germany
Russia
Sweden
Serbia United Kingdom
Citigroup's
CitiFinancial has taken global its subprime lending model. In
Europe in 2004 it was only in four countries. It is now in
a dozen: the UK, Spain, Ireland,
Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Russia, Finland, Denmark, Norway
and Sweden. In the first two, mortgages are offered. Everywhere
else, it’s high-cost personal loans, which is CitiFinancial’s
unreformed focus in the United States as well…
General Electric's
GE Money
now
has operations in
Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark,
Finland, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Poland,
Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK
(where its high-cost credit cards have made it the subject of
parliamentary debate)…
Belgium/EU - Site (and contacts)
regarding "remédier à l'exclusion bancaire et financière" -- remedying
banking and financial exclusion - click here (includes a memo regarding
"Le droit au crédit approprié" -- the right to appropriate credit,
a/k/a the right to fair finance..
Finland -- Click here for the Finnish Bankers' Association's
"Good Banking Practices"
Germany
Regulatory contact:
Bafin.de (The Bundesanstalt für
Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht)
Graurheindorfer Str. 108
53117 Bonn
Postfach 13 08
53003 Bonn
Tel: +49 (0)228 / 4108 - 0
Fax: +49 (0)228 / 4108 – 1550
E-mail: Poststelle [at] bafin.de Web: http://www.bafin.de/cgi-bin/bafin.pl?verz=&sprache=1&nofr=1&site=0&filter=&ntick=0
For consumer complaints:
http://www.bafin.de/beschwerden/beschwerden_bb_en.htm#p1
Banking law: see, http://www.gbld.org/intermediate.aspx?targ=country_details.aspx&mode=country&countryid=11
Some experience: Recent comments to BaFin on
mergers (for example, recent General Electric expansion in Germany) have been responded to
thusly:
Felix.Kallmeyer
[at] bafin.de writes
"In the context of our ownership
control following section 2b German Banking Act we have to research not only into GE
Capital´s business activities in Germany, but also in the USA and worldwide. We consider
the information that you delivered on GE Capital´s business practices as important. In a
first step, we will request from GE
Capital a statement on your concern." (Kallmeyer
2003; on file with the originating compiler of this database; contact us).
and see HumanRightsEnforcement.org
Russia
Regulatory contacts
Central Bank of the Russian Federation
Neglinnaya 12
103016 Moscow
Russian Federation
Tel: 7 095 9 217 995
Fax: 7 095 9 219 147
Web: http://www.cbr.ru
E-mail: webmaster@cbr.ru
Banking law:
see,
http://www.gbld.org/intermediate.aspx?targ=country_details.aspx&mode=country&countryid=30
and see HumanRightsEnforcement.org
Serbia
Regulatory contact:
NATIONAL BANK OF SERBIA
12 Kralja Petra St, 11 000
Belgrade, Serbia
Phone: +381 11 3027-100
Web: http://www.nbs.yu/english/about/index.htm
Instruction on "Buying a Bank,"
in English (many banks being privatized)
Laws, in PDF: The Law on the
National Bank of Serbia ("RS Official Gazette" No. 72/2003, 55/2004)
Law on Banks and Other
Financial Organisations ("Official Gazette of the FRY", No. 32/93, 61/95,
44/99, 36/2002 and "Official Gazette of the RS", No. 72/2003)
Serbia
squibs from See-News.com
Sweden
Regulatory contact:
Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (Finansinspektionen)
PO Box 7831
Regeringsgaten 48
S-103 98 Stockholm, Sweden
Tel + 46 8 7 878 000
Fax + 46 8 241 335
Web www.fi.se
http://www.fi.se/Templates/StartSectionPage____842.aspx
“The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority, Finansinspektionen, is a public
authority. Our role is to promote stability and efficiency in the financial system as well
to ensure an effective consumer protection.”
“In our company register you can search to determine which companies hold permits to
offer financial services, which companies that have registered other financial operations
and which foreign companies that have registered cross-border operations to Sweden. The
company register in English will be released in December 2004.”
(As of 12/19/04, had not been released -- check for updates at
http://www.fi.se/Templates/Page____2631.aspx
Also relevant: The Consumers' Banking Bureau, tel. +46-8-24 30 85, www.konsumentbankbyran.se
Banking law: see, http://www.gbld.org/intermediate.aspx?targ=country_details.aspx&mode=country&countryid=37
Payday and pawn: Cash America International's Q2
2004 Earnings Conference Call (July 22, 2004, Fair Disclosure Wire, Transcript
072204ah.764) stated:
"Our pawn lending operations in Sweden posted a bit of a rebound in the second
quarter with local currency denominated income from operations of 13 percent on improved
pawn loan yields as the business continues to struggle to achieve growth in pawn loan
balances."
Some experience: Recent comments to the
Finansinspektionen on mergers have been responded to thusly:
Margret.Inger [at] fi.se writes:
Dear Mr. Matthew Lee,
Thank you for your letter concerning Predatory Lender Household International. You mention
in your letter that HSBC already
runs the Household´s business model in Sweden in HSBC Bank plc at Västra
Trädgårdsgatan 17, Box 7615, 103 94 Stockholm. Financial
Services Authority, (FSA), London, has notified Finansinspektionen that HSBC Bank plc
- a firm authorised by the Financial Services Authority - has informed FSA to carry out
activities in Sweden by its branch in Stockholm. Finansinspektionen has registered that
the Stockholm branch has notified the following activitis according to the Banking
Consolidation Directive 2000/12/EC in accordance with Annex 1 of the directive:
1. Acceptance of deposits and other repayable funds
2. Lending
4. Money transmission services
5. Issuing and administering menas of payment
6. Guarantees and commitments
7. Trading for own account
8. Participation in securities issues and the provision of services
related to such issues
9. Advice to undertakings on capital structure, industrial strategy and
related questions and advice as well as services related to mergers and the purchase of
undertakings
11. Portfolio management and advice
12. Safekeeping and administration of securities
13. Credit reference services
14. Safe custody services
The branch in Sweden is under supervision of the homecountry, FSA, with exemption for
liquidity, which is supervised by Finansinspektionen. According to The Banking Business
Act the branch is allowed to carry on the same business in the hostcountry as is allowed
in the homecountry. Finansinspektionen has no detailed knowledge about which type of
lending, that is carried out in Sweden, why Finansinspektionen therefore cannot verify
that the Household´s business model is run by HSBC Bank plc branch in Stockholm. That
means that if you have any points of view of the business run by the branch in Sweden,
please contact the FSA in London, as the FSA has the homeland-supervision of that
business.
Yours sincerely,
Margret Inger
Jurist/Legal Counsellor
Finansinspektionen
P.O. Box 6750
S-113 85 Stockholm
Sweden
Besöksadress: Sveavägen 167
Telephone +46 8 787 80 00
Direct Line +46 8 787 82 05
Telefax +46 8 791 22 67
www.fi.se
Human Rights: Sweden - Ombudsman against ethnic
discrimination; and see HumanRightsEnforcement.org
United Kingdom
Regulatory contact:
The Financial Services Authority
25 North Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HS
Tel +(44) 171 676 1000
Fax + (44) 171 676 1099
Web www.fsa.gov.uk
Among the FSA's stated objects is "securing the appropriate degree of protection for
consumers."
The FSA is subject to the UK's Freedom of Information Act 2000. Requests can be made to
FOI Publication Requests. Financial Services Authority.
25 The North Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London. E14 5HS
Telephone: 020 7066 4406
Fax: 020 7066 4407
by form to http://www.fsa.gov.uk/foi/form.html
[FFW has made a request, regarding HSBC, RBS, Santander/Abbey and others.]
[For practice tips, try the U.K. Campaign for Freedom of Information's User's Guide (in PDF)]
"The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000
required the setting up of an arrangement for the investigation of complaints against the
FSA. Accordingly, the Complaints Scheme was introduced with effect from 3 September
2001." See, www.fscc.gov.uk/
Complain in writing to: The Office of the Complaints Commissioner
1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf
London E14 5DY
by telephone: 020 7712 1576
by fax: 020 7712 6422
by e-mail ComplaintsCommissioner@fscc.gov.uk
Banking law: see, http://www.gbld.org/intermediate.aspx?targ=country_details.aspx&mode=country&countryid=41
U.K. Commission for Racial Equality; and see HumanRightsEnforcement.org
Some Experience:
The FSA has confirmed that it considers public comments, for example those submitted in
connection with HSBC-Household, and
various applications by Royal Bank of
Scotland.
Continue navigating on the map below:
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United States
FFW Campaigns In Other Media
Non-USA/Global
FFW
researches, documents and advocates around financial firms' activities, and how they
affect local communities. FFW files its findings with tribunals, regulatory agencies, and
elsewhere, including on this Web site . Click here to view analyses of several
multinational financial institutions' effects on consumers and the environment, worldwide:
for two examples, Citigroup and HSBC. Click here for some initial brainstorming on the application
of human rights and international law to the global financial services companies, and for
citations (where possible, links)
to resource material. Click here for some September 2004 campaigns -- PNC/Riggs (Finance Watch Reports of August 16,
2004, onwards), J.P. Morgan Chase,
etc.. Click here for an
ongoing report on the campaign to reform anti-money laundering, tax haven, and bank
secrecy laws. Click here for
the Human Rights Enforcement project,
including its new (9/04) criminal
justice and local human rights project. For or with more information, contact us.
For More information, see:
Human Rights & Finance:
Predatory Lending in a Deregulated Network Economy
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