In times when doubtful financial maneuvers are questioned, especially with cryptocurren Social Ecumenical Forum He sponsored and spread since its inception. Three are the winners of the Ibero -American Chapter of the Prize Ethics & Trust in Finance for a Sustainable FuturE, a contest that the global organizes the Observatory of Switzerland. They are jAvier Joan Hernández del Ángel, Roberto Jaime Cuautle-Jiménez and Jennifer Casco Cortés.
Specialists who analyzed this conflicting theme participated in the delivery meeting. One of them, Matthias Nebel, stressed that finances are not an end in themselves, and that they must pay the common good, because they do not push it to social disintegration.
More blunt was Simona Beretta (Universidad Católica del Hacro Cuore, from Milan) who argued that the State and the market are not the only systems that interact in the economies, and that we must focus on the real agents, which are the ones that make the decisions. This implies, he stressed that the economy and finance develop within an asymmetric system, where the poor and excluded have no voices and the benefits are directed towards people who exploit this asymmetry, and do not lead to the common good. She is an excellent researcher that I met when she intervened in a seminar that I organized several years ago in the Vatican.
While jOsé Alfredo Toxqui (Popular Autonomous University of the State of Puebla, Mexico) proposed more solid organizational structures where corporate governance and senior management define the ethics they drive, strengthening the institutional capacity to mitigate fraud. This contest is a valuable contribution to strengthen concepts that are not fashionable today, but are key to comprehensive human development.
As a jury, I could read interesting studies of young people on the ethical implications of artificial intelligence in Fintechs, about the need to mitigate risks such as algorithmic bias and lack of transparency, Promote consumer confidence and guarantee equitable financial inclusion, With a more effective regulation, ensuring that the benefits of artificial intelligence are distributed fairly among all.
Another job that I examined proposes to invest in ethical funds that contribute to the common good, which can be used as a Tool for integral development, not only to generate wealth, supported by the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church.
For now they seem to be an expression of desires, far from reality. The economist Stefano Zamagni, President of the Academy of Social Sciences of the Vatican, in seminars of our forum warned that financial transactions quadrupled in world GDP, becoming self -referential, that is, an end in itself. He warned that enrichment in the financial sphere is not due to the superior capacity of people or the fact that they have invented something extraordinarily innovative, but for them to be lucky, or did not have moral scruples and thus obtained huge surpluses.
He thinks that the new Pope is very effective and cultured, that he will do his mission well, so that in particular for Christians there could be hope, that in the popular saying, it is the last thing that is lost.
*Fernando Flores Maino is a sociologist and essayist. He is president of the ecumenical and social forum.
By Fernando Flores Maio
