Case study: How FirstRand identifies and works on strategic business opportunities to increase positive and reduce negative impacts

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 fulfilling its governance duties, FirstRand’s board adopts an inclusive stakeholder approach that considers the legitimate needs, interests, and expectations of key stakeholders, including:

• Regulators
• Government departments
• Revenue authorities
• The investor community
• Employees
• Customers
• Suppliers
• The broader society

FirstRand recognizes the crucial role its stakeholders—such as employees, shareholders, customers, partners, suppliers, regulators, and society—play in its ongoing success. The board strives to understand these stakeholders’ requirements and carefully considers their legitimate needs and interests when performing its duties. Engagement with internal and external stakeholders ensures the Group remains informed of and responsive to material issues.

Ultimately responsible for stakeholder engagement is the board’s social, ethics, and transformation committee (Setcom). While stakeholder management is proactive and decentralized—reflecting FirstRand’s multi-brand strategy—the group’s governance structures are designed to escalate significant stakeholder concerns to appropriate group committees for resolution.

To ensure effective engagement, appropriate mandates, and risk management, the group has established guidelines and policies governing interactions with specific stakeholder groups.

In identifying focus areas aligned with the Principles, the Group also incorporated qualitative feedback from relevant stakeholders, including customers, investors, suppliers, NGOs, employees, and senior management.

Climate change

FirstRand has committed to engaging the following clients on climate change:

• The top 100 corporate clients in 2022
  • The top 200 corporate clients in 2023
  • Three million retail clients by 2025

The climate change strategies report provides updates based on insights gained from client engagement, including the progress of the top 100 clients compared to the previous year and the climate risk awareness of RMB’s top 300 clients.

To support the Group’s goal of educating and raising awareness among three million retail FNB customers by June 2025, FNB introduced nav» Earth in August 2023. This platform-based tool, accessible via the banking app under the “navigate life” section, educates customers about climate change, their carbon footprint, energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy through the “Carbon coach” feature. The coach aims to guide customers toward sustainable practices and ease the stress of South Africa’s energy crisis.

How did FirstRand identify and work on strategic business opportunities to increase positive and reduce negative impacts?

In its 2024 PRB Reporting and Self-Assessment Template FirstRand reports that it identified and worked on strategic business opportunities to increase positive and reduce negative impacts as follows:

Please refer to section 2.1(c) of FirstRand’s 2024 PRB Reporting and Self-Assessment Template for a detailed overview of the business opportunities (strategic initiatives) identified as aligned with each focus area.

The FirstRand Report to Society highlights numerous existing products and services, as well as new offerings that have been developed. The climate change strategies report provides detailed information on initiatives related to sustainable and transition finance, along with investment activities.

Some examples include:

• Green and olive assets accounted for 4% and 8% of South Africa’s core advances, respectively, as at 30 June 2024.
• R478 million was extended through EcoEnergy home loans (EDGE-certified) during the 2024 financial year.
• R1.2 billion was provided to FNB commercial customers for renewable energy and energy-efficiency infrastructure (total installed capacity of 71MW) in the 2024 financial year.
• To date, the Group has facilitated R157.1 billion in sustainable and transition finance.
• FNB’s lending to South African SMEs in the 2024 financial year amounted to R53.9 billion.
• R1.1 billion was allocated to agricultural transformation structures during the 2024 financial year.

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

• • • FBRH is a GRI Certified Training Partner (Global), ISEP Training Centre and a member of CPD.
    • 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 FirstRand, 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.firstrand.co.za/media/investors/policies-and-practice/pdf/firstrand-principles-for-responsible-banking-self-assessment-template-2024.pdf

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