[josscrowcroft]

This might be a naive question, but has there ever been a successful non-profit bank-like financial institution?

As I was reading this article I thought of iPredator.se, which provides a non-tracked VPN service. Their USP is "We don't track anything you do". I wonder whether there could ever be a cashless option that offers a similar service. This of course would only address the concerns of privacy and profit-driven interests, and not the other serious concerns raised in the article.

Has there been/could there ever be a bank like that?

[cmrdporcupine]

> This might be a naive question, but has there ever been a successful non-profit bank-like financial institution?

Credit unions are not-for-profit institutions, member-owned, and are very successful.

But they don't satisfy the second part of your post. Tracking and auditing transactions is kind of built into the idea of modern banking.

[halotrope]

In Germany we have GLS bank which is for profit but has a strong ethics code about their investments and try to maintain high standards of transparency.

https://www.gls.de/privatkunden/english-portrait/