THE Kirk is continuing investigations into whether its pension fund may have invested in anti-social businesses such as payday loan firms.
It came as the Archbishop of Canterbury admitted revelations that the Church of England's pension fund had helped fund Wonga were "very embarrassing".
A Church of Scotland spokesman said inquiries were "ongoing" to determine whether its finances were linked to companies trading in items such as arms, alcohol, gambling, tobacco, or short-term loans, but added the Kirk's regulations did not rule out these investments totally.
He said: "If it is the case [the Kirk had invested in such firms] there would be a meeting of trustees etc. to decide what to do, eg divest or not."
He said the Church of Scotland did not invest in firms "substantially" involved in activities "felt to harm society more than they benefit it". Substantially is interpreted as resulting in and around 15% or more of total turnover being derived from these sectors."
The spokesman said the Kirk did not invest in credit unions, but was in the "early stages" of talks with interested parties about funding them.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article