French Bank Volunteers Tobin Tax
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
Inspired by the economist and Nobel laureate James Tobin, the French bank Crédit
Coopératif has recently unveiled plans to impose its own voluntary contribution
on foreign exchange transactions (CVTC) in a bid to fund international
development aid.
Eager to persuade other financial institutions to follow suit, the bank is
due to present its plans for the solidarity levy (CVTC – Change solidaire)
at the forthcoming 2015 Convergence Forum in Paris.
In its official release, the Crédit Coopératif estimated that
introducing a 0.01% tax on the total sum of its inter-bank foreign exchange
operations will serve to generate in the region of EUR100,000 a year for development
projects.
Confirming that the count began on March 1, the bank emphasized that customer
tariffs on foreign exchange operations would remain unaffected by the levy and
that the bank would bear the cost of the contribution entirely.
According to Jean-Louis Bancel, President of the Crédit Coopératif group,
the bank aims to demonstrate that such innovative mechanisms are possible, and
that a common methodology could be adopted to achieve the millennium objectives.
While emphasizing that Crédit Coopératif is the first bank to
voluntarily apply such a tax, the bank also stressed that the plans would be
abandoned if a tax on such operations were introduced generally. |
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