Los productos socialmente responsables y su actividad comercializadora por los proveedores de servicios financieros de la economía social: sociedades cooperativas de crédito y cajas de ahorro

As with the developments that have been taking place now that business organisations are taking on Corporative Social Responsibility activities, the marketing of financial products included in what has recently become known as socially responsible investment (SRI) has now become the order of the day in today’s financial systems. This is due to financial institutions seeking competitive advantages in mature and highly competitive markets through differentiation, something they can at least partly achieve by promoting a wide range of ethical and socially-responsible products that represent a growing market with genuine characteristics like those of the very institutions for which the role of this type of products is analysed: credit cooperatives and savings banks. This article explains the results of a study on these companies and their marketing policy with regards to the portfolio of products with a distinct socially-responsible profile. The results indicate that the SRI market in Spain, unlike in other European countries, has not yet reached maturity and the demand is low. Moreover, even though the very nature of the institutions in question confirms it, the reality is that these products occupy a secondary position in terms of their turnover.