The group of research Banking and Finance for Society, of the School of Economics of the University of Navarra, has organized the workshopEthical Issuesin Finance and Banking, with the participation of experts from the universities of Huddersfield (Queensgate, UK), Groningen (Netherlands) and the International Monetary Fund. The congress addresses, among other issues, the phenomenon known as 'shadow banking', which refers to the banking business that escapes national regulatory bodies.

Professor Antonio Moreno presented the workshop as a forum for reflection to "think about the nature and objectives of banking" and "how to integrate ethics in their daily work". Professor Alejo J. Sison intervened to explain that after the "excessive dependence of Economics on the financial sector" it is necessary to "rethink how banks and financial institutions can contribute to the common good".

The organizer of the workshop, Ignacio Ferrero, recently appointed Dean of the School of Economics, was joined by Professor Cowton, who spoke about society's trust in financial institutions. Professor De Bruin, for his part, spoke on virtuous practices in finance and accounting. María Abascal, from BBVA's research service, participated with the paper Challenges in regulating shadow banking.

Banking without borders

To close the workshop, Professor Ratnovski, from department of research of the International Monetary Fund, gave a presentation at lecture on shadow banking, the name given to the set of entities, infrastructure and practices that support financial operations that occur outside the reach of national regulators. It includes instruments such as hedge funds, capital market funds and structured investment vehicles.

The main activities of investment banking are subject to regulation and monitoring by central banks and other government entities, but it has become common for investment banks to conduct a large part of their transactions through channels that do not appear in their conventional accounting statements and are therefore not visible to regulators, internship . Various sources cited estimated the total amount of operations within the shadow banking system at around $60 trillion.