Case study: How MBH Bank promotes a culture of responsible banking among its employees

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.

MBH Bank has a continuous, structured, and two-way relationship with all its stakeholders, actively reflecting on their feedback, to understand their perspectives on sustainability issues. While stakeholder opinions indirectly influence the ongoing development of the bank’s strategy and business model, MBH Bank does not document specific changes or planned actions made in consideration of stakeholder groups and their feedback.

The bank’s internal stakeholder groups include owners, management, and employees, while key external stakeholders consist of clients (retail and corporate) suppliers, competitors, professional organizations, regulatory authorities, government agencies, civil society organizations, local communities, and the media. Communication with all stakeholder groups takes place through diverse channels, tailored to each specific group.

In 2024, MBH Bank carried out its inaugural group-level double materiality assessment within its sustainability reporting under the CSRD to identify significant impacts, risks, and opportunities related to ESG. This assessment involved identifying stakeholders—both internal and external—who are affected or may be affected by the bank’s operations or value chain. The detailed descriptions of these impacts were communicated to the assessors through an online questionnaire and reinforced verbally during a supporting workshop. The stakeholders helped assess the bank’s material topics. While climate stability was identified as a material topic in the assessment, the impact of biodiversity has not yet been assessed at the Group level and is an upcoming step that MBH Bank seeks to undertake. The bank is currently treating the group-level double materiality assessment and the impact analysis of the UN PRB applicable to MBH Bank separately. However, in the future, MBH Bank aims to align the two processes, which will include a reassessment of the materiality of biodiversity topics during the next double materiality assessment.

Additionally, in relation to the impact area of biodiversity and healthy ecosystems, MBH Bank aims to further refine its stakeholder identification process and engage with relevant groups. This may include clients operating in high-impact sectors related to biodiversity, as identified during the Nature Key Sectors screening phase. The Hungarian National Bank is a notable stakeholder in this context, given its ongoing involvement in nature-related guidelines, risk assessment methodologies, and workshops.

How does MBH Bank promote a culture of responsible banking among its employees?

In its 2025 PRB Responsible Banking Progress Statement MBH Bank reports that it took the following actions to promote a culture of responsible banking among its employees:

To ensure effective ESG governance, MBH Bank focuses on sustainability training for the Board of Directors and senior management. The purpose of the training is to deepen participants’ understanding of current environmental, social, and governance trends, enabling them to incorporate these elements into the bank’s long-term strategy and daily operations. The first phase of the training series was completed in the fall of 2023, during which 107 participants acquired up-to-date knowledge on various topics, including ESG fundamentals, regulatory obligations and recommendations, ESG reporting and ratings, and green financing.

To further promote responsible banking, in October 2024, the ESG Academy, accessible to all employees, was launched, led and coordinated by the ESG department. This program includes seven modules designed to equip employees with essential and comprehensive ESG knowledge.

Furthermore, in 2024, MBH Bank organized over 370,000 hours of internal training. Alongside mandatory programs, the bank prioritized diverse professional development by inviting external experts as speakers. The MBH Academy was the cornerstone of the bank’s development system, ensuring that all employees received essential mandatory training relevant to their roles, as well as company-wide compliance training and programs aimed at strengthening soft skills and leadership development to facilitate intentional career growth.

Another important tool for the effective implementation of the ESG Strategy is the integration of sustainability elements into MBH Bank’s compensation system. The Supervisory Board approves the principles and reviews the compensation policy, while the Board of Directors is responsible for its execution, which is audited internally by MBH Bank at least yearly.

The structure of the Board of Directors and the Supervisory Board includes a majority of independent non-employee members, ensuring impartial decision-making and prioritization of the company’s interests. These members receive fixed compensation without performance-related incentives, meaning their pay does not directly influence corporate performance. In contrast, the management team’s motivation system is linked to overall strategic goals, which might include ESG-related objectives. Currently, one member of senior management has such KPIs. These objectives ensure that all leaders contribute to MBH Bank’s long-term success and are incentivized through variable compensation based on annual performance evaluations. While these goals are not publicly disclosed, climate-related and ESG performance was further integrated into the compensation structure in 2025, promoting sustainable and ethical business practices.

Concerning biodiversity, MBH Bank implements several attitude-shaping initiatives. Within the framework of the ‘Bank for a Sustainable Future’ program, MBH Bank is committed to advancing biodiversity conservation, which encompasses the MBH Forest initiative and partnerships with National Parks. In 2023, the bank launched its tree planting campaigns, successfully planting 23 000 native saplings. Of these, 10 000 were planted with the voluntary involvement of the bank’s employees and 13 000 by the Gyulaj Forestry. In 2024, an additional 14,000 saplings were planted, comprising 10 000 with the involvement of the bank’s employees and 4000 during the completion of the “Customer Experience” Open University program. (During the training program, employees could collect “virtual trees,” that were subsequently planted in a real forest.) All these efforts are projected to sequester roughly 220 tons of carbon dioxide annually, a figure applicable to fully mature trees. In both 2023 and 2024, a total of 140 employees participated in tree planting volunteer events each year. More recently, a third tree planting event by MBH Bank, focused on team building and raising environmental awareness, took place in March 2025, where 10 000 trees were planted, with 100 employees taking part in the initiative. Additionally, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, MBH Bank allocated 30 million HUF in 2024 to support Hungary’s national parks in the development of comprehensive biodiversity preservation programs. Beyond financial contributions, a critical component of this partnership is the engagement and education of the bank’s employees. Accordingly, MBH Bank and the staff of Bükk National Park collaborate on essential conservation tasks regarding the maintenance and enhancement of educational trails.

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 MBH 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://www.mbhbank.com/sw/static/file/PRB_Responsible_Banking_Progress_Statement_new.pdf

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