Case study: How FirstRand 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 fulfilling its governance role and responsibilities, FirstRand’s board employs a stakeholder-inclusive approach that integrates the legitimate needs, interests, and expectations of the following key stakeholders:

• Employees
• Shareholders
• Customers
• Partners
• Suppliers
• Governments
• Civil society
• Communities

FirstRand Group recognizes the vital role its stakeholders play in its ongoing success. The board seeks to comprehend the needs of stakeholders and duly considers their legitimate concerns in fulfilling its duties. Proactive stakeholder management is delegated to appropriate central functions or business units. The Group’s governance frameworks ensure that material stakeholder issues are escalated to relevant committees for resolution.

When identifying focus areas for the Group under the Principles, the analysis also took into account feedback and insights from relevant stakeholders, including customers, investors, suppliers, NGOs, employees, and senior management.

Climate change

The Group has committed to engaging the following clients on climate change:

• Top 100 corporate clients in 2022:
  • This target was met in the financial year.
  • The objective was to assess clients’ levels of climate strategy implementation, including their transition pathways and required support.
  • The graph on page 37 of the FirstRand TCFD report illustrates customer climate maturity compared to sector climate risk rating.
• Top 200 corporate clients in 2023.
• Three million retail clients in 2025.

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

In its 2022 Principles for Responsible Banking Reporting and Self-Assessment Template FirstRand reports that it works with its clients and customers to encourage sustainable practices and enable sustainable economic activities as follows:

Climate change

Please refer to the strategy section of the 2022 TCFD report for details on climate solutions implemented during the year.

Financial health and inclusion

Ensuring fair treatment of customers is fundamental to the Group’s business strategy. The Group continues to refine its governance frameworks, policies, and processes to support this objective. Key policies are available on the FirstRand ESG hub on the Group’s website. The FirstRand Report to Society showcases numerous examples of products and services that encourage and enable sustainable practices and economic activities for customers. Examples include:

• Financial literacy, education spend and programmes: These target the low-income market, assisting consumers in making informed financial decisions. During the year, the Group reached 31,598 individuals through financial literacy workshops.
• SME development: FNB has established initiatives that support SMEs, including mentorship programmes for black-owned SMEs with high growth potential and significant job creation prospects.
• FNB agricultural transformation: FNB’s agriculture solutions encourage and enable commercial farmers to engage in transformation initiatives empowering black farmers, their employees, and the communities in which they operate.
• Easy Zero: An entry-level transactional bank account with no monthly fees.
• CashPlus: FNB partners with merchants in Zambia, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Ghana and Namibia, who act as agents, to provide day-to-day banking services to customers through the CashPlus channel.
• FNB’s funeral and Life Simplified micro-insurance products: Offer affordable entry-level insurance products.
• Integrated advice: FNB offers integrated advice through education, insights, and platform solutions for both employees and customers, aiming to improve financial literacy, resilience, independence, and product adoption.

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/esg-approach/firstrand-principles-for-responsible-banking-self-assessment-template-2022.pdf

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