The ‘Move Your Money’ campaign is supported by a coalition of groups including Co-operatives UK, Ethical Consumer and the New Economics Foundation.

The campaign encourages people to move their accounts from the big banks to more ethical alternatives. It initially focussed on doing this in the month of March 2012 -but even though March has come and gone, you can still switch your accounts. It’s seems like a bit of a hassle but I’m going to give it a go.

The campaign responds to Ethical Consumer’s banking report. The report finds that UK banking is the “most unethical” business sector in the UK, and that  the ‘Big Five’ banks – Barclays, RBS, Lloyds, Santander and HSBC – are widely involved in corporate malpractice, greenwash and investments in climate changing industries like coal mining, deforestation, and fossil fuel-based energy generation.

“The 85 per cent of the UK’s population that bank with the Big Five banks will be appalled to learn that their money is being used to support a corporate culture that stands accused of everything from tax avoidance to exacerbating global hunger,”according to Rob Harrison, co-author of Ethical Consumer Banking Report.

Where to move your money?

The Report found that the most ethical financial instititutions include:

• the Co-op Bank,
• smile.co.uk,
• the Charity Bank,
• Ecology Building Society,
• Triodos Bank,
• the Coventry, Cumberland, Norwich & Peterborough, Leeds, and Nationwide building societies
• the credit unions.