Case study: How BGR works with its clients and customers to encourage sustainable practices

Stakeholder identification and consultation

Please describe which stakeholders (or groups/ types of stakeholders) you have identified, consulted, engaged, collaborated or partnered with for the purpose of implementing the Principles and improving your bank’s impacts. This should include a high-level overview of how your bank has identified relevant stakeholders, what issues were addressed/results achieved and how they fed into the action planning process.

In 2022, BGR embarked on a cultural transformation journey, working closely with its stakeholders to address a major challenge. Through a proactive management approach, the bank evaluated, planned, executed, monitored, and adjusted various organizational variables to promote values, aligning them with its corporate vision. The goal was to foster a genuine and authentic commitment to executing its strategy.

To achieve this transformation, BGR collaborated with stakeholders through work cells led by the management line, ensuring that responsible banking principles were implemented in line with its strategy and committed to supporting business objectives for sustainable finance.

Key milestones reached in 2022 with the BGR stakeholders include:

• Repositioning of the corporate philosophy through a corporate event that highlighted the importance of shared values from a holistic perspective.
• Developing actions to promote corporate values through leadership training and activities with collaborators and stakeholders.
• Measuring cultural maturity to know the current cultural ecosystem, identifying areas for improvement, and strengthening the BGR identity towards its desired culture, reflecting aspirations and objectives aligned with the organization’s strategy and goals.

As part of this process, BGR introduced the cultural radar, a tool used to map maturity levels based on attributes that make up its cultural philosophy, including vision and purpose, mission, values, leadership empowerment, objectives and strategy, happiness, and innovation and agility attributes.

How did BGR work with its clients and customers to encourage sustainable practices and enable sustainable economic activities?

In its 2022 PRB Reporting and Self-Assessment Template BGR reports that it works with its clients and customers to encourage sustainable practices and enable sustainable economic activities as follows:

In 2022, BGR remained committed to delivering value to its customers and employees. To achieve this, the bank implemented various actions in response to significant changes, including a new office model that unified roles and responsibilities for frontline staff. This required a thorough review of profiles for new positions, identification of gaps, and focused development actions for collaborators taking on new responsibilities.

BGR achieved an impressive 85.1% customer loyalty rate, compared to the 86% target for 2022. The bank’s service measurement model relies solely on call centre feedback, with an annual sample size of approximately 10,000 external customer surveys and 4,000 internal customer surveys.

BGR’s policy prioritizes serving clients with manageable account balances and risk levels, avoiding unhealthy concentrations and focusing on small, diverse client bases. This approach enabled the bank to maintain a healthy portfolio growth in 2022 and ensure adequate risk coverage through provisions.

BGR executives excel at providing personalized service to each client, resulting in elevated loyalty levels and a unique customer experience. Aware of the evolving market demands, the bank continuously develops competitive and innovative products while strengthening its digital channels daily.

UN Principles for Responsible Banking: Accelerating a positive global transition for people and the planet

With over 300 signatory banks representing almost half of the global banking industry, the Principles for Responsible Banking are the world’s foremost sustainable banking framework. Through these Principles, the banking community takes action to align core strategies, decision-making, lending and investment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and international agreements such as the Paris Climate Agreement.

FBRH Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) Assurance:

First class PRB assurance services: The result of solid, hands-on ESG/ Sustainability experience

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    • FBRH builds trust. Over 200 reviews from top professionals from around the world demonstrate our ability to build strong, trusting business relationships.
    • FBRH possesses a unique skill set that combines ESG/sustainability certified training, experience in advisory services and report preparation, and ESG/sustainability report assurance.

The combination of all the above empowers FBRH to provide first class Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) assurance services.

References:

This case study is based on published information by BGR, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the following link:

https://www.bgr.com.ec/resources/pdf/transparencia-de-la-informacion/PRB-Reporting-and-Self-Assessment-BGR-2022.pdf

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