Banking group plans to expand social benefits network

DHAKA (Reuters) - An international group of banks pledged on Tuesday to expand their social benefits network to 1 billion people by 2020 as part of a campaign to serve the unserved and those vulnerable to climate change.

At the end of a three-day meeting on the outskirts of the Bangladesh capital, the Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV), an independent network of 11 banks, said that it would look to adopt genuinely values-driven models.

"The members of the GABV have committed to touch the lives of one billion people by 2020 ... to transform lives on a truly global scale, and make a substantial difference in our efforts to combat climate change," Fazle Hasan Abed, co-founder of the GABV, told reporters.

The Dhaka meeting focused on joint capital raising efforts, and building an infrastructure to support the development of a new generation of bankers to use it.

"We believe values-led banking can and should make a positive difference to the lives of one in six people within 10 years," said Peter Blom, chair and co-founder of the group and chief executive officer of Triodos Bank in the Netherlands.

The alliance, which says it represents 7 million customers in 20 countries with a combined balance sheet of more than $14 billion, committed to raise $250 million to support the expansion of $2 billion in lending to communities not served by banks and green projects around the world.

"Within a couple of months we will (have) $140 million and it will not be difficult to raise the rest money over three years," said Abed, who is also chief of the BRAC, the world's largest non-government micro-financing agency.

(Reporting by Serajul Islam Quadir; Editing by Anis Ahmed and Jerry Norton)