Case study: How Zenith Bank 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.

Zenith Bank’s stakeholders are defined as groups or individuals with an interest in the bank and who are affected by its activities, products, or services. Zenith Bank’s stakeholders include investors, employees, customers, suppliers, communities, industry peers, local and national government agencies, media, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and international institutions. Through a comprehensive stakeholder engagement and management process, all these groups are considered in the bank’s responsible business decision-making.

Some of the key concerns raised by Zenith Bank’s stakeholder groups include:

• Employees: health and safety, compensation and benefits, training and development, work-life balance, and employee volunteering.
• Investors: financial performance, return on investments, investor relations, sustainable finance, and transparent communication.
• Customers: information security awareness, processing time for electronic transactions, claims and dispute resolution, transaction fees and charges, updates and offers on products and services, incentives, and access to cash.
• Suppliers: policy reviews, payment cycles, adherence to signed Service Level Agreements (SLAs), complaint resolution, Environmental & Social (E&S) risk considerations, information security and privacy awareness, monitoring, and evaluation.
• Government: foreign exchange rate practices, regulatory compliance, banking reforms, effective risk management and systemic risk prevention, lending to the real sector—particularly SMEs—anti-corruption initiatives, anti-money laundering efforts, and financial inclusion.

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

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

Climate Action — Zenith Bank’s Climate Risk Management approach enables it to effectively evaluate its climate risk exposures across its operations, credit activities, and investments. This helps the bank to identify and implement actions aimed at further reducing its carbon footprint. Additionally, Zenith Bank continues to engage stakeholders and conduct training sessions, including employee training, to explore opportunities in climate risk management for its customers.

Food Security — Projects under the 100for100 Policy on Production and Productivity (PPP) are designed to significantly boost domestic production and productivity, reduce reliance on imports, increase non-oil exports, and enhance the foreign exchange generating capacity. This initiative is carried out in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, focusing on both microeconomic and macroeconomic impacts, such as contributions to GDP and job creation.

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:

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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 Zenith Bank, 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://digital.zenithbank.com/sustainability_report/UNEPFI-PRB-Reporting-and-Self-Assessment-2024.pdf

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