Fainé urges to "look to the future with optimism" despite the current "complex scenario"

Defends financial entities with a "light and flexible" structure and a "personal treatment" to the client

MADRID, 8 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The president of the 'la Caixa' Banking Foundation and of CECA, Isidro Fainé, has urged "to look to the future with optimism" despite the "complex scenario" that the world is experiencing derived from the pandemic, inflation and the war in Ukraine .

In this sense, he has indicated that the global GDP is below what was expected three years ago, with inflation "much higher" than was imaginable then, with which "the living conditions of the vast majority of citizens have not improved as they should.

However, he referred to the "transforming effects that are already beginning to be felt in the social, economic and financial spheres, such as the acceleration of the digitization process and new consumer habits, the reconfiguration of international financial relations and the redesign of global supply chains, as well as the realization that inflation was not dead and interest rates were not locked in forever.

Fainé made these statements during the closing in Paris of the congress of the World Institute of Savings and Retail Banks (WSBI), which he also chairs and which is made up of more than 7,000 entities in 63 countries on all continents.

During his speech, he opted for these entities to develop "a light and flexible organizational structure" and to distinguish themselves by "personal and exquisite treatment" of any client.

"The treatment must be frank, friendly and humane, whatever the communication channel used," he assured.

He also highlighted that these entities are facing a "decisive phase" in their history in the face of this complex scenario in which "urgent adversities in the short term are combined with significant transformations in the medium and long term".

The 26th WSBI World Congress has approved the Declaration of Paris 2022, a backbone document that advocates promoting sustainable finance to ensure the economic resilience of the communities in which they operate.

The WSBI, created in 1924, represents more than 6,000 savings and retail banks from around the world whose total assets amount to 15.6 trillion dollars and serve nearly 2,000 million clients, offering financial services mainly to SMEs and families.

The approved declaration invites regulators to coordinate and harmonize different taxonomies to promote interoperability and mutual recognition. Such a measure can help promote sustainable cross-border finance, as well as reduce compliance costs, the CECA explained in a statement.

Fainé opened the meeting stating that "feeling and acting in a socially responsible manner is inextricably linked to the identity" of the entities that are part of the organization.

"The fact is that we were born this way, it is part of our DNA, and it is our vocation. All this translates into our way of doing banking, which is fundamentally different from that of other players in the sector and, furthermore, it is profitable, efficient and fair," Fainé said before the more than 200 participants from all continents, who met in person in Paris for the first time since 2018.

The Paris World Congress was held in the French capital on July 7 and 8 under the title 'Rooted in the community. Globally responsible', thus underlining the WSBI 3Rs model -retail, responsible and rooted- as a necessary strategy to build a more inclusive and sustainable society.

Leading experts linked to the financial world and from different jurisdictions discussed the main issues on the current economic and financial agenda: regulatory harmonization in sustainable finance; digitization and its impact on financial inclusion; and the wide scope of social responsibility in the recovery environments and geopolitical changes that currently coexist at the global level.

Among the prominent representatives of the international regulatory field were Mairead McGuinness, Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union of the European Commission, and José Manuel Campa, President of the European Banking Authority.

For her part, the Secretary of State for Digitization and IA of the Government, Carme Artigas, has appeared via video. The director of Financial Studies of FUNCAS, Santiago Carbó, the director of Public Affairs of CaixaBank, Christian Castro, the general director of CECA, José María Méndez, and Shlomo Ben-Ami, vice president of the Toledo International Center for Peace and former Israeli ambassador in Spain have also attended this triennial meeting.

As a parallel event to the World Congress, the presentation of the Scale2Save (S2S) program took place, which, after six years of activity, will come to an end on August 31.

This program, developed by WSBI in alliance with the Mastercard Foundation, has aimed to promote financial inclusion through the establishment of basic savings accounts in developing countries and financial education projects, thus overcoming the barriers faced by most of the population of these countries in access to financial services.

With 1,078,000 registered customers as of March 31 and a monthly activity rate of 20% over the last twelve months, S2S exceeded its numerical commitment to reach one million customers.

Thanks to its total budget of more than 16 million dollars, S2S managed to carry out successful projects in places such as Ivory Coast, Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda.