Case study: How JB Financial Group 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.

Placing co-prosperity and harmony with diverse stakeholders at the core of its overall management approach, JB Financial Group has been deeply engaged with them and operates a structured response system guided by its “Principles for Stakeholder Communication and Response,” which are outlined as follows:

1. Sustainability: JB Financial Group aims for sustainable profits in collaboration with stakeholders such as local communities, customers, employees, and long-term shareholders.
2. Ethics: The Group emphasizes the importance of universal ethical standards.
3. Fairness: JB Financial Group seeks to make fair and balanced decisions without favouring specific stakeholders.
4. Transparency: JB Financial Group commits to transparently disclosing the basis for decisions related to stakeholder demands.

JB Financial Group identifies customers, employees, shareholders and investors, local communities, and supervisory authorities as key stakeholders, all of whom influence one another mutually. The Group engages with these stakeholders through various channels on a wide range of issues affecting its overall management, including environmental, social, and economic concerns. Annually, stakeholder surveys are conducted to identify material issues. Moving forward, JB Financial Group plans to expand communication channels to facilitate more efficient feedback and opinions from stakeholders, while also pinpointing their primary concerns. The communication channels for key stakeholders are as follows:

1. Customers: Website, customer call centre, customer satisfaction surveys, customer experience groups, social media, financial consumer protection education, Leaders Forum (VIP customers)
2. Executives and Employees: Intranet and bulletin board announcements, corporate culture enhancement programs, CEO engagement initiatives
3. Shareholders and Investors: Website, board meetings, general shareholders’ meetings, shareholder communication letters, international conferences, investor relations (IR) activities
4. Local Communities: Website, employee volunteer programs, social contribution activity reports, university student ambassadors, social media
5. Regulatory Authorities: Attendance at regular meetings, submission of periodic reports, routine and ad hoc inspections

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

In its 2025 PRB Reporting and Self-Assessment Template JB Financial Group reports that it works with its clients and customers to encourage sustainable practices and enable sustainable economic activities as follows:

JB Financial Group is developing the following policies and plans to promote sustainable economic activities and encourage sustainable practices in collaboration with its customers:

As the global economy advances toward addressing the climate crisis, investment risks associated with coal power and related industries continue to rise. In response, JB Financial Group announced its commitment to sustainable and environmentally responsible finance in May 2022 by launching the ‘Ending Coal Finance’ initiative. This initiative underscores the Group’s determination to support the transition to a low-carbon economy. Beyond the declaration, JB Financial Group is actively implementing this commitment by ceasing participation in project financing (PF) for the construction of domestic and international coal-fired power plants and completely halting the underwriting of bonds issued by special purpose companies (SPCs) and general bonds related to such projects.

Furthermore, JB Financial Group is progressively strengthening its ESG engagement process and framework for corporate clients. To achieve this, the Group has formulated an ESG engagement promotion strategy and has completed Step 1, ‘Development and Advancement of ESG Products,’ and Step 2, ‘Support for ESG Diagnosis/Consulting Collaboration,’ in 2024 through partnerships with external organizations. In 2025, JB Financial Group planned to implement Step 3, ‘Direct Support for ESG Diagnosis / Consulting,’ utilizing an internal support system, thereby contributing to the reduction of the Group’s financed emissions.

Meanwhile, JB Woori Capital, a subsidiary of JB Financial Group, has established a Green Bond Management Framework aligned with the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) Green Bond Principles, the Ministry of Environment’s Korean Green Bond Guidelines, and the Korean Green Taxonomy. Additionally, JB Investment has launched a pre-investment ESG checklist covering environment, society, and governance aspects to address the increasing ESG demands within the venture capital industry. This checklist aims to establish a process to prevent investments in industries or businesses that are negatively evaluated from an ESG perspective. Moving forward, JB Investment will enhance its ESG framework step by step to embed ESG management across all business processes.

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.

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References:

This case study is based on published information by JB Financial Group, 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.jbfg.com/assets/download/pages/esg/achievements/JB Financial Group PRB Report(2025).pdf

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