Do you know what your bank is doing?

Post the 2008/2009 world financial crisis, more and more consumers, companies and non-profit organisations have taken a better look at financial institutions and their dealings.

Such a move was triggered due to the highlights of some banks and investment banks being found to be dealing and accepting unscrupulous deals for the sake of profit.

Yet here in Malaysia, such awareness is lagging except among those monitoring the international financial news outlets.

For example, Malaysia's World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) is currently using HSBC as its default bank for salary distribution.

The institution which two years ago acknowledged being the bankers of logging companies in Sarawak, highlighted by Focus Malaysia. Of course, when it came to light, they immediately withdrew the investment.

Furthermore, just recently HSBC was leaked to be the one institution helping plutocrats and billionaires evade paying taxes, currently dubbed the "Swiss leaks" affair.

Similarly, the fact that Malaysia had allowed Al-Rajhi entry into retail banking in the country is also suspect, especially after its founder appeared on a list of people funding al-Qaeda by American intelligence agencies.

Similarly, many American banks were sued by their government for conning their people during the financial crisis.

Yet, none of the larger banks saw their executives facing criminal charges; a fact that was highlighted prominently by Matt Taibbi in his book “The Divide”.

Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz also highlighted that there was predatory lending, a concept where banks and lenders knowingly lent money to those they knew would default their loans.

How many of those foreign banks are operating in Malaysia?

Of course, local Malaysian banks have tightened such rules to avoid this from happening, but at the same time, we do need to take a look at which banks are loaning cash to questionable investments by companies.

I'm not saying local banks are less or more dubious, especially after what happened to the top management of two major banks being "reshuffled" and "resigning" after the 1MDB late loan payment fiasco.

However, there is a need for all of us to be more aware of what financial institutions are involved on an international scale.

Issues such as being the banker for global terrorism, illegal deforestation, and even being promoted as the bank to evade taxes are a huge matter that we are not considering for the simple fact that such banks are deemed a global convenience.

But what does such a convenience cost in the price of lives, environment or even politically. For all we know, banks are even the holder of accounts for political party slush funds on a global scale.

Do we abandon such thoughts simply because of a lower per annum interest rate on loans, or better gains on investments?

Of course, most of us would be fine with the old adage from “The Godfather”; it's not personal, its business.

But how far are you willing to push such an adage when we talk billions of illicit outflows through both local and international banks?

While Bank Negara Malaysia plays the role of policing the financial sector, it is up to each and every one of us as individuals, business owners and even non-government organisations to know and keep tabs of where our money is stored and what the institutions are doing on a global scale.

The financial crisis and its fallout showed that bankers are willing to gamble money they don't have, but the fact that they also get away with criminal acts, break sanctions and even loan to logging companies should be information for the public to decide if such is an institution which adheres to their own principles. – TMI