Starting from the premise that finance is not about money, but about the relationships among people, states, markets and natural environment, this report from Jubilee Research provides three key features so that finance can become a tool for development. The paper warns that: In order to achieve the objectives of global security and meeting basic human development needs, the imbalance between free markets and human and environmental relations should be addressed; FDI scarcely contributes to local economic development, therefore a more democratic control over national and international financial institutions and encouragement of economic self-reliance is required; Since the South is paying the North three times over: in debt repayments, via the flow of mineral, agricultural and biological resources, and through the costs it is bearing from the impact of environmental degradation and climate change, contraction and convergence mechanisms to account for the ecological debt should be implemented.