CODOFINE 2015-02: Position for promoting an international dialogue

The OFCCFO’s Council of Doctrinal Financial Ethics (the “Codofine”) wishes to recall that one of the objectives of the OFCCFO is to organize an international dialogue between the various Christian Financial Players to lead to the development of a harmonized regulatory and doctrinal framework.

Today, it appears that the so-called “Christian” financial activities are flourishing. Owing to this constant phenomenon, the OFCCFO proposes to bring together the professionals to set ethical and financial criteria deemed as referential (governance, investment policy, transparency, etc.).

Such a framework would, on the one hand, (i) increase the protection of the Christian Financial Players’ reputation in case of possible abuse and, on the other hand, (ii) improve the visibility of the Christian Financial Players vis-à-vis the public:

(i) Financial behaviors contrary to the Christian values ​​and precepts must be denounced by the Christian Financial Players on the basis of a disclosed charter. This is a question of credibility and transparency vis-à-vis the public, but also of reputational risk’s control, since the conviction of a financial player claiming unfairly to be Christian would likely damage the reputation of the Christian Financial Players (risk of confusion).

(ii) Improving the visibility of the Christian Financial Players is a major objective for the emergence of a well-recognized Christian financial sector. So far, the Christian financial activities do not constitute a clearly identified market, the activities being sparse and diluted. No economic or financial study has accurately assessed the extent of the banking and financial activities in line with Christian precepts and values.

The Codofine believes that the dialogue should primarily be initiated by the professional lays and religious with a good technical knowledge of the financial activities.

The Codofine

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