Compassion in Financial Services Hub

Bringing together the financial services industry, policymakers, academia, communities, and civil society with the aim of creating a more inclusive, sustainable, and compassionate financial system.

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By exploring pathways to operationalise the concept of compassion in financial services, the Hub has the ambition to address systemic challenges while unlocking new opportunities for innovation and long-term success. 

In an era marked by declining trust, growing inequality, and urgent global challenges, the Hub provides a pathway for the sector to evolve into a force for good. By integrating compassion within our financial systems, the Hub will help the sector and companies meet its ethical and long-term business goals while contributing to a more just, sustainable, and inclusive economy.  

Trust in the Financial Services sector fell sharply after the 2008 global financial crisis and, despite some recovery, remains at a low level. This trust deficit poses not only a challenge for the sector but also carries profound societal implications. When trust in institutions and systems is low, the ripple effects can undermine economic stability, social and political cohesion, and collective progress. To rebuild and sustain trust, we need to envision financial systems where compassion is embedded as a core guiding principle, fostering decisions and actions that prioritise people, communities, and the planet.

Tobi Schneider, Sector Engagement Lead (Financial Services & Fintech) and Co-director, Compassion in Financial Services Hub

Mission and approach

The Hub wants to provide pathways to reimagine and redesign a financial services sector where compassion drives decision-making, fosters inclusivity, and alleviates suffering. Compassion, as we define it, is a four-part process: noticing suffering, understanding its causes, feeling empathetic concern, and acting to alleviate it. By applying this methodology, we aspire to:  

  • Examine ways in which behaviours within and decisions taken by the financial sector inadvertently or directly cause or contribute to suffering.  
  • Identify structures and dynamics that support or hinder compassionate behaviour and practises in the sector.  
  • Lead with compassion when we engage with practitioners in the financial services industry, especially recognising the challenges they face.
  • Develop mechanisms to alleviate suffering by redesigning the way financial services organisations operate.   

The Hub integrates interdisciplinary research, collaborative dialogue, and actionable strategies to imagine and design solutions to systemic challenges. We work relationally, engaging financial professionals, policymakers, and communities in open dialogue. Through participatory research and co-created solutions, we seek to amplify underrepresented voices and identify pathways for change. 

We focus on: 

  • Compassionate leadership and workplaces:
    Promoting cultures and practices that value empathy and inclusion.  
  • Compassionate products and services:
    Designing solutions that prioritise community wellbeing and planetary health.  
  • Compassionate technology and data:
    Creating technology to foster transparency, inclusivity and fairness.  
  • Compassionate policies and processes:
    Advocating for systemic reforms to enhance societal outcomes.  

We aim to:  

  • Reimagine a more equitable, accessible, and compassionate financial services system.  
  • Shape ethical, compassionate, and sustainable business practices that benefit companies, communities and the planet.  
  • Align the financial sector with global goals like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  

“The financial sector is one of the most influential sectors in the economy – it can shape outcomes in a way that few other industries can. So whether decisions are taken with compassion at their heart or from a narrow pursuit of more, matters to all our futures. Creatively working with colleagues in the sector to experiment with ways to weave compassion into the sector’s goals and ways of working therefore has transformative potential”

Katherine Trebeck, Co-director, Compassion in Financial Services Hub and Edinburgh Futures Institute’s Writer-at-large

Ethical data practices 

We recognise that data, and how it is used, is never neutral. Data reflects and often amplifies systemic challenges, such as biases, inequities, and exclusions, embedded within its collection, analysis, and applications in financial products and services. By critically examining data practices and their impacts through the lens of compassion, we aim to co-create innovative financial products, services, and policies that foster systemic change and a more compassionate future. 


Why now?

The United Nations and World Economic Forum have identified trust, equity, and environmental sustainability as foundational and critical global goals. Financial services are both contributors to distrust, inequity and the environmental crisis, but also potential catalysts for solutions. By fostering compassionate practices, financial service companies, policymakers, practitioners and academics can collaboratively address systemic inequities, reduce environmental harm, and rebuild trust.  

Join us in creating a financial system that uplifts individuals, supports communities, and promotes planetary health. Together, we can redefine what compassion looks like in financial services and beyond.  

“The word compassion has two parts -com meaning with” or “together,” and pati—“suffering”. Compassion is about intentionally working to alleviate suffering for a purpose – and that purpose is to flourish together. Compassion brings the resolve, the methods and the strength of connection that will enable the Financial Services industry to lead authentically in responding to many of the intractable and complex global and national challenges.”

Liz Grant, Co-director, Compassion in Financial Services Hub and Co-director of the Global Compassion Initiative, University of Edinburgh

Postgraduate study opportunities

Postgraduate Study

Planetary Health

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Become a leader in addressing the climate, environment and health crisis through data innovation. With a strong focus on engaging governments, finance and industry, and in designing policies with action-oriented and context-sensitive solutions.

Postgraduate Study

Circular Economy

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Gain skills and develop knowledge of circular economy in order to support communities, businesses, and policymakers to create a more sustainable and equitable future. Explore your own circular business ideas through course work and the final project.

Postgraduate Study

Data and Artificial Intelligence Ethics

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Gain the interdisciplinary skills and knowledge of ethical design, use and governance of artificial intelligence and other data-intensive technologies in order to navigate complex systems and roles with transparency, fairness, and respect for individual and human rights, and social needs.

Meet the team

Katherine Trebek

Katherine Trebeck

Co-Director, Compassion in Financial Services Hub
Liz Grant headshot

Liz Grant

Co-Director, Compassion in Financial Services Hub
Headshot of Tobi Schneider

Tobi Schneider

Co-Director, Compassion in Financial Services Hub

Funders and partners

Evelyn Partners
Founding Partner of the Compassion in Financial Services Hub

Evelyn Partners is a multi award-winning wealth management group, with a rich heritage going back 188 years. With £62.7 billion of assets under management (as at 30 September 2024) they are one the largest UK wealth managers, with offices across the UK as well as the Republic of Ireland and the Channel Islands. 

Their purpose is ‘to place the power of good advice into more hands,’ which they deliver through a range of services. Their expertise includes financial planning and investment management, enabling the company to offer clients a truly holistic wealth management service. Through Bestinvest, they also provide an online investment platform and coaching service for investors who prefer to make their own decisions.

Evelyn Partners’ philanthropic support will allow the Compassion in Financial Services Hub to conduct foundational research, establish compassionate networks across stakeholder groups, and to organise outreach activities.

For further information please visit: www.evelyn.com.

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