Italy’s UniCredit has stopped using Facebook for advertising and marketing campaigns and will not do so again until the US giant improves its ethical standards, the bank’s CEO said yesterday.
“Facebook is not acting in an ethical way... We will not use it until it has proper ethical behaviour,” Jean Pierre Mustier said during a conference call with analysts yesterday.
Asked whether the decision had been related to a scandal involving political consultancy Cambridge Analytica Mustier replied yes.
He said Facebook had guaranteed it would not use users’ data but had done so in the end.
Facebook has faced intense scrutiny around a data breach row involving Cambridge Analytica, which saw millions of users’ data improperly accessed.
The scandal has prompted multiple official investigations in the United States and Europe.
UniCredit said the decision to stop using Facebook for its business activity had been taken at the end of March.
Facebook on Monday said it is in talks to deepen links with banks and financial institutions, saying it can help the firms improve their customer service.
The company said users of financial firms such as PayPal, Citibank and American Express could link their financial accounts with Facebook’s Messenger and chat with a customer service representative.
The Wall Street Journal had reported that Facebook had asked banks to share detailed financial information about their customers, including card transactions and checking-account balances.
A Facebook spokeswoman said the company could see some financial information from such users if they choose to opt-in, but did not use it for “advertising or anything else”.
“We’re not using this information beyond enabling these (customer service) types of experiences,” Facebook said in a statement.
“A critical part of these partnerships is keeping people’s information safe and secure.”
The Journal report said Facebook over the past year has asked JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo & Co, Citigroup Inc and US
Bancorp to discuss potential offerings it could host for bank customers on Facebook Messenger.
“The idea is that messaging with a bank can be better than waiting on hold over the phone,” the company said.
Meanwhile, UniCredit expects to reach a deal with the United States in a dispute over alleged sanctions violations in Iran in the coming months, Mustier said yesterday.
“We are confident we can reach an agreement with the US before the end of the year,” Mustier said in a conference call on the company’s second-quarter results.
He gave no details.
In 2011 UniCredit was subpoenaed by the New York county authorities over a series of past operations involving Iranian companies.
The US Department of Justice then opened an investigation in 2012 to look into the extent to which the bank had met measures introduced by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
UniCredit has said it is carrying out its own internal investigation to assess past payments in US dollars and its respect of the US imposed sanctions.
New US sanctions against Iran took effect yesterday, with President Donald Trump pledging firms doing business with Tehran would be barred from doing business with the United States.