“We want to finance the economy which has a social, territorial and ecological impact”, says the president of FAIR

The solidarity week takes place from November 13 to 20 and is organized by the FAIR association (Finance, Support, Impact, Gather). Its president, Frédéric Tiberghien, is the eco guest on Friday, November 17.

From November 13 to 20, the 16^e edition of solidarity finance week. The event, organized by the FAIR association, aims to raise awareness of solidarity finance among as many people as possible in the hope of launching new initiatives. Frédéric Tiberghien explains what solidarity finance is.

franceinfo: Can we simply start by defining solidarity finance?

Frédéric Tiberghien: Solidarity finance is finance that directly links savers with projects with a strong social and environmental impact. So the saver subscribes to a product which is invested and which supports a company or a cause to which the saver is attached.

What are solidarity finance products?

There are three routes to becoming solidarity savers. The oldest is that of banks and insurance companies. The second circuit which is the most widespread today is that of employee savings. Many employees, particularly in large companies and SMEs, have participation and profit-sharing agreements. Through this, they can subscribe to funds called 90-10, where 90% is invested in listed products and 5 to 10% in solidarity products which finance solidarity companies. The third circuit is direct subscription to the capital of solidarity companies, such as Solifap, which is a branch of the Abbé-Pierre Foundation. She created a real estate company which raises capital to finance associations and real estate programs for people who are poorly housed.

What is the profile of solidarity savers?

You have the heart of activists who have been both social and environmental activists for many years and who subscribe to products with a social and environmental impact. Then, you have the immense mass of employees who benefit from these employee savings agreements. And finally, you have individuals who are particularly attached to mutual or cooperative banks, which also promote a certain number of financial products which support the social economy and solidarity finance.

Are these products profitable? Does solidarity savings yield as much as traditional savings?

These products are profitable, but we distinguish several motivations in impact finance. Finance which primarily aims for impact is the case where the saver says: “What I want is social and environmental impact before financial profitability”. You have others who say: “Me, I want financial profitability as much as impact”. So, in general, solidarity products are financially profitable, but some of them, which fall under what we call passion investing and which focus on impact, are a little less profitable than the others.

There are French people who are attracted by solidarity savings. You have just published a survey and yet today it represents 0.45% of the total savings of the French. What is the problem ? Is it a lack of notoriety when it’s been around for 40 years?

The world of finance is complex and increasingly complex because there is more and more finance, which finances different objects. At one point, we talked about green finance, then there was responsible finance, ethical finance and solidarity finance. They all have different objects so they are all necessary, but I recognize that for the moment, we are getting a little lost and it is very difficult to find our way. So we actually communicate with this particular concern to explain a little better what we do. But at the same time, it is very easily explained since I consider today that we have 2 million solidarity savers. But in France, we have a little over 30 million households, so we still have to convince ourselves. We still have more than 30 million households to convince and this does not happen overnight.

Are you confident in this current context?

We are very confident because I would summarize it by saying that the collection of solidarity savings has grown on average by more than 15% per year for fifteen years, therefore ten times more than GDP. Which means that the potential remains considerable because savers want to choose financial products that give meaning to their investments. We want to finance the real economy and that which precisely has a social, territorial and ecological impact and we are driven by the extremely strong social and environmental aspirations of savers. We are a finance that provides an answer to this question and savers are increasingly favoring it, but it is up to us to make the effort to convince more of them.