RBS Invests in Cluster Bombs

The Royal Bank of Scotland is one of the high-street banks that is investing hundreds of millions of pounds in companies that manufacture cluster bombs – despite a growing global ban outlawing the production and trade of the weapons. The others are Lloyds TSB, Barclays and HSBC, according to The Independent, Tuesday 16th August 2011

The Amnesty International is campaigning trying to stop RBS investing in companies involved in the production of cluster bombs. While we naturally support this campaign, we also know that only systemic fixing of the fundamental flaws in the system can really make a difference. Until too much wealth and power is accumulated – and constantly is being redistributed – to the banking sector, they will continue to cause a huge amount of harm.

The reforms that Positive Money propose would (among other things) require banks to disclose what they do with our money, whether that’s investing in houses, small businesses, commodity price speculation, or investing in in arms manufacturers. In that light, post-reform, RBS would need to attract people who want to invest in weapons of mass destruction before they could make a loan to a company that produces cluster bombs. So this is an example of how they might want to approach it…