⚠️ #ECB fines French lender Crédit Agricole €7.55M for failing to address climate risks. That's good news! But now, supervisors must make sure that banks stop contributing to the overall buildup of climate systemic risk, before it's too late for an orderly transition. Read more 👇

When payment systems are weaponised as geopolitical leverage, the case for a #DigitalEuro becomes clearer by the day. The experience of French ICC judge Nicolas Guillou is shining a spotlight on why a publicly-backed European digital currency is fundamental for EU sovereignty. 1/2

🌍📉 Ignoring extreme weather and tipping points could make the climate crisis crash the global economy. Yet, current economic models continue to dangerously underestimate climate risk. We can’t bail out the Earth like we did banks! It’s time for models & policy that reflect reality.

🌍🔥 Economic models are failing to capture #ClimateRisk; yet governments are still using them to set policy. It is essential that policymakers include cascading climate impacts and tipping points in order to protect our economy and society from the worst impacts.

#GDPR protections are being diluted for AI. Europe is updating its digital rulebook with #Omnibus II. It’s meant to simplify and align rules for online platforms, AI, and digital finance. But in doing so, it threatens to weaken safeguards for your data, privacy, and financial rights.

Is advocacy exhausting and painstaking? For sure. Is protecting people from financial harm optional? No ❤️‍🔥 More about how we support citizens 👉 bit.ly/4k2vSS5

Thrilled to welcome our new Secretary General @ibuscke.bsky.social ! Looking ahead, she highlights Europe’s challenges stemming from an economic model prioritising profit over people & society and notes: "Europe faces a choice about the kind of financial system it wants." 1/2

1/ The 🇪🇺 Commission is taking a political chainsaw to hard won social, environmental, and digital protections. We need #RulestoProtect not #Deregulation. Check out our new cartoons below by @cartoonralph.bsky.social and spread the word!

🏛️ Finance Watch at the German Bundestag At a hearing on EU banking rules, Julia Symon heard the usual lobby claims. But this doesn't match the facts. Well-capitalised banks lend more 📊. No stability vs competitiveness trade-off. It’s profits vs resilience. #CRD #FinancialStability #EUFinance

#2025InReview 2025 brought major shifts in Europe’s financial regulations, raising questions about risk management and long-term resilience, fairness, and accountability. 🎥 Discover the topics that shaped Finance Watch’s research and public engagement. ▶️

📢 We’re hiring a Grants Administration Intern in Brussels! 🌍 Want to help finance serve society and the planet? Join Finance Watch and support our Operations & Projects team. 👉 Learn more & apply 💼: www.finance-watch.org/job/job-offe...

Bien dit @chrisaltereco.bsky.social : "Tout pointe une montée des risques, dans beaucoup de marchés, fortement interconnectés, et impliquant les banques, mais surtout ne demandons pas à ces dernières d’efforts supplémentaires pour nous protéger des folies de la finance" Lire aussi :

❄️ This holiday season, we’re sharing a glimpse of the future we’re working towards: a world where finance serves both society and the planet. From everyone at Finance Watch, thank you for standing with us on this mission. We wish you a peaceful end to the year and a 2026 full of hope!

“Non bank finance” sounds like it sits outside the banking system. It does not. Banks remain at the heart of today’s shadow banking system. 👇

Ever clicked “yes” online and later wondered why? You may have met a dark pattern, a manipulative design trick that hides fees, fakes urgency or pushes subscriptions. Dark patterns cost you money and compromise your privacy. 🔗 Learn how to protect yourself: www.finance-watch.org/blog/dark-pa...

@leevisaari.bsky.social from @ainowinstitute.bsky.social on the #AI bubble: "Open AI lost 10bn in the last quarter. Three big tech companies spent 350bn on AI last year, and our EU competitiveness fund is 450bn over the next 6 years. This is a bubble which is going to burst." #FinanceForSociety

Adriana Cuppuleri from @algorithmwatch.org addresses how AI influences credit scoring systems and the huge gap in agency regarding the technologies that have an effect on our lives: "Scoring is never just neutral, it is built on a political assessment." #AIAct #FinanceForSociety

🤖 AI is reshaping finance faster than regulation can keep up. Adriana Cuppuleri from @algorithmwatch.org, @leevisaari.bsky.social from @ainowinstitute.bsky.social and Christian M. Stiefmüller discuss how Big Tech is reshaping our financial system (and society). #FinanceForSociety

@annpettifor.bsky.social on the role of pension funds at the #FinanceForSociety Forum: "Pensions should be invested in the domestic economy to provide for domestic growth, employment and income, from which the future pensions can be paid."

@annpettifor.bsky.social on the coming future crisis due to debt accumulation and the bailout state: "The markets are operating in their stratosphere and beyond government oversight. Yet, unlike the crisis in the past, today the markets cannot and will not go bust..."

@annpettifor.bsky.social on the migration away from national boundaries - and democratic oversight and regulation - at the #FinanceForSociety Forum: "The global economy is now effectively governed by those active in private global markets in money; not the democratic governments or the IMF."

@annpettifor.bsky.social at the #FinanceForSociety Forum: "To the detriment of the rest of us and while the casino operates in another sphere altogether, it remains tethered to the real 'bailout economy' we live and work in: our pensions, cost-of-living, housing and our climate."

@annpettifor.bsky.social touches on the hype and marketing behind the #AI bubble at the #FinanceForSociety Forum: "The AGI bubble may just be a vast techno-dystopian power play to put tech bosses at the helm of political and economic control. This is class war at its most brutal."

📣 LIVE NOW! @annpettifor.bsky.social speaks along with Greg Ford from Finance Watch at the #FinanceforSociety Forum in Brussels on challenging the global casino by building economic and climate justice. Watch here 👇

@andrewwatteu.bsky.social from @etui.bsky.social on the need for a bigger role for public finance: "We need a bigger EU budget, common borrowing and safe assets, as well as a further reform of fiscal rules with the view of enabling public investment." #FinanceForSociety

@thomasfazi.bsky.social at the #FinanceForSociety Forum: "95% of #BlackFriday sales were financed. (...) People are entering long term indebtedness to maintain consumption levels. These kind of high levels of private debt were exactly what caused the last financial crisis."

@dirkehnts.bsky.social on the past examples of using credit policies to steer finance into productive industry at the #FinanceForSociety Forum: "A different world is possible and we have already been there. We need to reimagine it for the XXI century!"

@christinejberry.bsky.social at the #FinanceForSociety Forum: "The financial sector weaponises complexity. We see this playing out in advocacy; shaping complex regulations which are now being unwound because the industry then says they are 'too complex to comply with.' How do we break this cycle?"

@thomasfazi.bsky.social on the financialisation of everyday life through the touristification of cities & the rise of 'buy now, pay later': "The financial establishment has been able to evade scrutiny even as it extends its tentacles in our society and become more influential over our lives."

📣 At our plenary, @thomasfazi.bsky.social, @christinejberry.bsky.social, @andrewwatteu.bsky.social and @dirkehnts.bsky.social discuss how to shift finance to serve people and society, alongside moderator Marek Hudon. A thread 🧵

@geoffmann.bsky.social at the #FinanceForSociety Forum on how uncertainty and crises are shaping our societies, reducing the assumption of a stable horizon: "The now annual ‘hundred-year flood’ is a good metaphor for where we are."

@geoffmann.bsky.social on the need to re-politicise finance at the #FinanceForSociety Forum: "Global tumult has accelerated in the last decade and dangerous is the new normal. But finance is how capital selects its future. Finance is the single greatest means to address an age of uncertainty."

Our secretary-general Benoît Lallemand touches on climate change at the #FinanceForSociety Forum: "Currently, climate scenarios massively underestimate the cost of climate change (...) and even if we recognised the true cost, we still need massive political courage to start addressing the problem"

@geoffmann.bsky.social ponders on the role of finance at the #FinanceForSociety Forum: “Finance is the single most important machine in the construction of the future, the crucial first step in planet-making. It’s the most powerful tool we have to address the future and its uncertainties.”

Today at the #FinanceForSociety Forum, @geoffmann.bsky.social, political economist and professor of geography at Simon Fraser University, touches on how we can hope to reimagine finance for a planet in crisis. Watch now 👇

📢 We’re hiring an Accounting & Operations Intern (3–6 months) in Brussels, supporting accounting (Horus), office & events, HR backup, and statistics tasks. Are you organised, accurate, Excel/Google Sheets–savvy, and fluent in EN, FR or NL?👉 Apply here: www.finance-watch.org/job/job-offe...

🏢 Bankers’ pay rules are not properly linked to green performance. We are calling on @eba.europa.eu to ensure bonuses are tied to long term climate & #ESG goals. 🌍 Remuneration requirements should incentivise the management of climate risks over horizons in which they actually materialise!

🔍 Soon, we’ll be discussing how we can defend and advance a financial system that works for people and the planet at the #FinanceforSociety Forum in Brussels! Register now to join the conversation on 4 Dec 👉 www.finance-watch.org/campaign/fin...

🌍 Following the EP vote to gut EU sustainability rules, @ec.europa.eu has shared the proposal to simplify the Sustainable Finance #Disclosure Regulation. Vincent Vandeloise notes some improvements but warns of greenwashing risks as nearly any investment could be eligible for the new #ESG category.

🪖 The EU is boosting #Defence spending, and some want to label it sustainable. But changing the EU rulebook to make defence count as green finance risks undermining climate goals and the credibility of sustainable finance. #GreenInvestments must stay green!🌱

This #Halloween, a menace looms over the financial system🦇 In #StrangerThings, the Upside Down is a dark reflection of our world. Finance has one too. Shadow banks hold nearly half of global financial assets. It’s time to regulate shadow banks before they strike! A 🧵 1/5

🧵 1/ 🚨 New report from @finance_watch: “Breaking the spiral of uninsurable climate losses” As climate impacts grow, Europe’s insurance safety net is shrinking – leaving taxpayers to pick up the bill. 🧵 Read on ↓

A new era at Finance Watch! Isabelle Buscke will be Secretary General from 1 January 2026. With deep EU policy and public interest advocacy experience, she’ll help advance a financial system that serves society. Our deepest thanks to our outgoing SG, Benoît Lallemand! 🤝 #FinanceWatch #Leadership

📣 BREAKING: Geoff Mann will join the #FinanceforSociety Forum on 4 December in Brussels! A leading voice on the politics of crisis and capitalism’s uncertain future, and author of Climate Leviathan. Join by registering through our website 👉 finance-watch.org/campaign/finance-for-society-forum-2025

📢 We’re hiring! Finance Watch is looking for a Visual Communications Officer to help make finance serve society through creative design and storytelling. 📍 Brussels | 🌍 NGO | 💡 Creative impact 👉 Learn more and apply here: www.finance-watch.org/job/job-post...

🔍 Findings from @InfluenceMap on how the UK oil & gas industry lobbied for subsidies & incentives for Carbon Capture & Storage instead of committing to real emissions cuts. At Finance Watch, we caution that relying on unproven technologies like #CCS fuels greenwashing & delays the transition! 🌍

📣 Ann Pettifor will be at the #FinanceforSociety Forum on 4 December in Brussels! She has been a leading voice on finance & justice and will soon publish her new book The Global Casino on the hidden world of shadow banking. Join us by registering today 👉 www.finance-watch.org/campaign/fin...

📣 Ann Pettifor will be at the #FinanceforSociety Forum on 4 December in Brussels! She has been a leading voice on finance & justice and will soon publish her new book The Global Casino on the hidden world of shadow banking. Join us by registering today 👉 www.finance-watch.org/campaign/fin...

🏦 Banks had more than USD$1.1tn in exposures to fossil fuels on their balance sheets in 2023, a new report from @financewatch.bsky.social found. That’s why there’s a need for a systemic climate risk buffer, said Julia Symon, one of the authors of the report.

📣 ANNOUNCING the #FinanceforSocietyForum 2025! As tensions rise with trade wars, inflation & regulatory rollbacks, academics and civil society must come together in support of resilient, just economies. Save the date and register now 🎟️ www.finance-watch.org/campaign/fin...