The Purpose of Finance – APPG roundtable discussion

The finance industry is one of the UK’s most successful industries. But it’s an industry most associated with boosting inequality than equality. And when things go wrong they go badly wrong for all of us.

For years, we’ve focused on how the finance industry works, but not on why, or in other words, what the purpose of finance is.

The APPG on Inclusive Growth and Pension Insurance Corporation plc (PIC) have come together to launch a new initiative to focus on the ‘Purpose of Finance’. On June 4th we brought together parliamentarians and industry experts in Parliament to discuss this important subject.

The APPG and Pension Insurance Corporation plc plan to publish a new report later this year about the purpose of finance and why this is such a vital issue to be brought into the wider debate about how to achieve more inclusive growth.

At the event David Pitt-Watson and Dr Hari Mann set out the key points from their PIC-sponsored paper ‘Why Finance Matters: Building an industry that serves its customers and society’ (download it here). They argued that ‘if we are to have a purposeful finance industry we need to debate what its purpose is, measure whether it is being achieved, and design our industry so that it is ever better’.

A range of MPs and peers, leading figures from the finance industry, policy experts and researchers all took part in the discussion. Organisations that were represented included Legal and General, The Good Economy, the CBI, Positive Money and ShareAction.

Over the course of an hour the participants discussed the central issue of considering what the purpose of finance is. We discussed how a lot of people do not see any connection between the City of London and their lives and we considered how the ‘black box’ of the finance industry could be opened up. The APPG and Pension Insurance Corporation plc will hold further events on this theme later in the year. We also plan to publish a new joint report about why we feel it is important for the purpose of finance debate to be brought into the wider debate about how to achieve more inclusive growth.

READ MORE: David Pitt-Watson and Hari Mann have written a blog for the APPG about why they are starting a debate on the purpose of finance.