Digitization (action by which analogue processes, procedures, and objects are converted to digital format) can lead to the internal transformation of companies’ business models, strategies, processes, and procedures, which we generally call digital transformation.

This digital transformation, or the ability to carry it out, could be seen as a competitive advantage. If we take the banking sector as an example and, within it, we differentiate purely digital players and compare them to traditional players, we could conclude that the competitive advantage is not just about digitization and digital transformation of the former, but a much broader positioning that encompasses the company’s attitude towards innovation – called innovation orientation –, of which one of its results would be, for example, digitization and subsequent digital transformation.

This article aims to identify the key characteristics of purely digital players when compared to their traditional competitors in relation to innovation orientation and what differential characteristics have helped them achieve that level of digitization and digital transformation – understood as a result of such innovation orientation – successfully.

The financial sector, and banking in particular, is especially sensitive to the application of business ethics. On the one hand, because its role as a strategic sector of the economy is a key and determining factor and, on the other, because during recent years, and especially since the financial crisis of 2008, it has been the protagonist of numerous scandals and bad practices. The adoption of ethical behavior is fundamental in the operation of banks, since these organizations manage a very sensitive asset that is owned by their customers — money. Sota much sota, that not only speaks of banking ethics, but even the existence of ethical banks; two aspects that are different. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the characteristics that define ethical banking and what aspects differentiate it from banking ethics.

In recent decades, different manifestations of Social and Complementary Currencies (SCCs) have emerged. SCCs are exchange mechanisms that offer an alernative to legal tender, aiming to stimulate trade within a circle. Their use is justified by the very definition of money as an agreement or law made by the community. Such currencies can be divided into six categories: currencies backed by official currencies to optimize the circulation of the legal tender by retaining it; currencies backed by other goods and/or services to inject liquidity into the community; currencies issued by the public authority that are circulated extensively because of their usefulness for paying taxes; mutual credit systems where members' positive or negative balances equate to the right to ask for the equivalent value of goods and/or services or the duty to provide them, respectively; SCCs issued as bank credit, with counter-cyclical effects to stabilize economic activities; and Fiat SCCs, which come into being without collateral, and need to be carefully managed to avoid accumulations in some businesses or overissue leading to hyperinflation. Each model's advantages and disadvantages must be studied carefully to decide which is most appropriate.