Abstract
The financial world is pragmatic, eager to gain profits, and has a core purpose: increasing wealth, not for everyone but for specific groups of people. Equally, finance relies on other people’s money to obtain positive economic outcomes. The financial business has also become more transactional than relational and has always been prone to market failures. On top of that, the natural risks that are proper in financial activities are transferred in the markets by moving liability from hand to hand until it turns out to be too late. Bearing in mind these unique features, is there such a thing as ethics in finance? Can we talk about ethical financial institutions? If there is and we can, is this a subject matter that can be dealt with by establishing general standards of behavior aimed at being applied to all people and institutions involved? Establishing rules of conduct has been the role of regulators. Moreover, subjecting public and private institutions to monitoring and sanctioning noncompliance with such rules has been the role of states. Then, what is the purpose of financial ethics? The complex decisions people and institutions must make every day while managing other people’s money and financial assets need an approach compatible with the purpose of such businesses. Thus, it appears that relying on traditional ethics in the financial markets to correct improper behavior seems to be a dreamer’s desire rather than a real solution. Therefore, this chapter proposes some ideas that could contribute to the construction of an adequate ethical approach to the provision of financial services in a globalized financial world.
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Baquero-Herrera, M.H. (2020). Ethics in Finance as the Result of a Strong Systemic Commitment. In: San-Jose, L., Retolaza, J.L., van Liedekerke, L. (eds) Handbook on Ethics in Finance. International Handbooks in Business Ethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00001-1_2-1
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