@vfrmedia Yes, but it's important to note that the Co-Op Bank in UK was never a true cooperative (it was a plc, as far as I know). It was never directly owned by its customers, unlike e. g. the local cooperative banks in Germany. This seems to matter a lot in banking. Customers usually don't want their bank to take outsize risk.

@mattcropp

@stefanieschulte I don't think UK has ever had genuine cooperative banks ; and even the credit unions use co-op banking or RBS for their IT/payment clearing functions.

What I would like to see is more co-op tech businesses like the German and French hosting companies, but I've not encountered them in UK yet, maybe they do exist but just don't advertise as much?

@mattcropp

@stefanieschulte @mattcropp @vfrmedia as far as I remember co-op banks in UK declined in 1970ies due the decline of production co-ops

@mattcropp @stefanieschulte @vfrmedia I would recommend https://www.thephone.coop/ great customer service! #socialcoop #tootup

I would like to see some sort of cooperatively owned p2p lending as am dubious about the direction of the current corporate ones! It is a booming sector so there may be opportunity

@NOiDEa @mattcropp @stefanieschulte my friends used thephone.coop at their housing co-op but ended up (reluctantly) switching to British Telecom as they were unable to deal with multiple line faults and broadband issues (this was a few years ago though and they do appear to have put more investment into customer service)

@NOiDEa @vfrmedia I'm concerned about current "p2p" lenders as well, as they "now seem to be in transition [...] to a model that increasingly involves hedge funds and banks feeding in institutional money and employing securitisation techniques [...]"

https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/occasional-papers/occasional-paper-18.pdf#page=35

This has little to do with "p2p" anymore. It starts to resemble the business models from before the subprime crisis.

@vfrmedia @stefanieschulte the thing is it is a catch 22 it is hard to set up an alternative to the established order as they have a monopoly (as with Twitter!)

And has p2p really challenged the status quo? When set up by people like Nicola Horlick...https://www.moneyandco.com/about

I think you are right the first step is grassroots solidarity with #socialcoop

@NOiDEa @stefanieschulte

maybe I'm missing something but doesn't look any different from traditional stock purchase/fund management portal (you can already research what you are investing in and/or select "ethical funds" if you so wish).

To succesfully challenge the status quo something *better* has to be provided. Mastodon for instance gives more characters/functionality than birbsite, as well as the friendlier (if smaller) community

@stefanieschulte @vfrmedia p2p lending? One difference is there is 'zero' commission - so does not favour people making larger investments. With traditional stocks you are locked in untill your profit clears the commission. So big investors shorts sell, small investors (who were reeled in by the dream of getting rich thru investment are the mugs that pick up the tab).

@stefanieschulte @vfrmedia @mattcropp a related development is Tridos offering a current account now. https://www.triodos.co.uk/en/personal/current-account-registration/?gclid=CjwKEAjwjPXIBRDhwICRg-DbgHISJADP6QXp60N5MNgYrbagSwmCPg5Dh8sBvvjONMcj7dWjeQAYOBoCHW3w_wcB

Personally I have used credit unions as these have more democratic ownership than the 'co-op' bank did

http://moveyourmoney.org.uk/

#SocialCoop #tootup

@NOiDEa @vfrmedia @mattcropp To my knowledge, Triodos is not organised as a cooperative. German GLS Bank, which has a very similar business model, is a coop, though:

https://www.gls.de/privatkunden/english-portrait/

@stefanieschulte @vfrmedia @mattcropp no I don't think so - they are an 'ethical' bank. The problem with the credit unions although I prefer their structure is they are quite inconvenient (separate account for your 'debit' card, long way to branch and less developed online). Therefore am tempted by Tridos - wonder if they would consider a #socialcoop model

@NOiDEa @stefanieschulte @mattcropp

there is a well established credit union in my region which has even survived a theft from customers accounts of around €100 000 by a senior manager (he was caught and sent to prison, customers money was protected by security/insurance guarantees). There does seem to be a lower level of online access though (since the decline in use of cheques in UK I've not visited a bank branch in person for years!)

@vfrmedia @stefanieschulte @mattcropp Yeah I remember hearing about that! Yes it is lucky savings have similar states protection to larger banks - that fact reassured me to sign up to a credit union myself

@vfrmedia @NOiDEa @mattcropp Local cooperative banks (and credit unions too, I think) need to collaborate in order to provide good online and mobile banking. This is something German coop. banks have been doing for decades. As a small credit institution, it's usually impossible to do this on your own.

@stefanieschulte @NOiDEa @mattcropp there is also a perception in UK by mainstream that "left" aligned businesses have lower levels of customer service/responsiveness. I think this is falsehood and the level of customer service has declined in *all* sectors as part of the "hidden costs" of 24/7 online society" but progressive orgs may be less likely to use outsourcing in low wage countries to compete on responsveness?

@stefanieschulte @vfrmedia @NOiDEa

Definitely; in the US we have a shared ATM network, etc., among credit unions. A quirk is that #creditunions didn't really get going in the #UK until the 1960s and 70s, so the sector is much younger there than in other places...

@mattcropp @stefanieschulte @NOiDEa TBH mainstream banking tech in the UK lags well behind rest of EU and USA. We even didn't get ATMs that weren't locked to single banks until well into the 1990s, and paper cheques linger on here (unlike in mainland Europe)

@stefanieschulte @vfrmedia @mattcropp I'd interested to know whether you think this qualifies as 'co-op' ownership; relative strengths/weaknesses: https://www.wikitribune.com/

@NOiDEa @vfrmedia @mattcropp In a co-op (according to our definition in Germany), "one member, one vote" always applies (democratic principle). Furthermore, a #cooperative has to create "member value" (instead of maximising "shareholder value"). In this respect, #Wikitribune is not a cooperative.

@mattcropp @vfrmedia @NOiDEa
There are media cooperatives, though, e. g. "Die Tageszeitung" in Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Tageszeitung

Last year, German project "Krautreporter" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krautreporter)
has become a cooperative, too.

@NOiDEa @vfrmedia @mattcropp Here is a new media project in Switzerland, which is partly organised as a cooperative:
https://www.cjr.org/innovations/news-startup-crowdfunding-switzerland.php

@mattcropp @vfrmedia @stefanieschulte Germany leads the way again! I'm not sure which is more critical -reformed media or reformed financial services. Without the the former, fighting a relentless, loosing battle against corporate PRopaganda

@qwerty FYI -see previous post in thread

@stefanieschulte@mastodon.cloudTH/Dankeschön - will bookmark these. TAZ is a decent site: I don't see too many nags for € and reporting is fairly easy for me to follow (with DE not being first language) w/o content being dumbed down. main page is also not filled with "good news" stories which aren't fake as such but even the leftwing UK news puts in as filler material nor moans about use of adblockers..

@mattcropp @NOiDEa