The announcement by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, that the Church of England will attempt to put Wonga out of business through promoting credit unions has led to a small amount of embarrassment. It has emerged that the Church of England has a stake, via an outsourced fund manager, in a private equity firm that put funds into Wonga. However, the debate surrounding this has been quite constructive. It has turned to the difficulties of managing investments ethically. The churches do this and have to make many decisions on the ethics of investments. They will not always get it right. But they believe it is worth trying. This is what I do, as a Senior Fund Manager at the Central Finance Board of the Methodist Church.
I was interviewed for the BBC news website on this issue yesterday. You can find the article here, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23465294.