Banco Sabadell seeks to respond to society’s aspirations and concerns by accepting its responsibilty as a driver of the economy and carrying on its business in an ethical and responsible way.
In 2013 the Bank approved a Corporate Social Responsibility Master Plan reaffirming the values and ethical principles that govern its actions, at a time when there was a need to show commitment to maintaining the trust and reliance placed on it by stakeholders.
The Plan comprises five main action areas:
- Responsible banking: Strengthening the ethical dimension to all our activities in a transparent way. Minimizing the impacts of our operations and contributing to the development of the community.
- A healthy organization: Encouraging a sense of pride and of belonging on the part of employees.
- Environmental sustainability: Minimizing the environmental impacts of our facilities and our business.
- A culture of social responsibility: Raising the profile of professional ethics through accurate and transparent reporting.
- Shared value: Building alliances with our stakeholders.
Responsible banking
Commitment to business ethics
For Banco Sabadell it is of vital importance to ensure the strictest compliance with legal requirements and with the policies, internal procedures and codes of conduct that guarantee ethnical and responsible conduct at all levels of the organization.
For this reason the Bank has since 2003 had codes of conduct and stakeholder policies that apply throughout the organization and extend to all group activities.
Transparency and financial education
Banco Sabadell seeks to protect the interests of its customers and has control mechanisms in place to supervise the products and services it offers:
Personalized information to ensure that customers take informed decisions.
Tests of suitability and appropriateness for complex financial products.
Responsible advertising: we have been subscribers to Autocontrol (an advertising self-regulatory organization) since 2010.
Support for the National Plan for Financial Education.
Creating our own initiatives on financial education: paraquesirveeldinero.com, an online personal finance tool, and the audiovisual campaign “How long are we going to live?”
Impact on society
The Bank strives to create wealth in the Spanish economy within a framework of sustainable growth: 18,077 people directly employed; more than €1,135 million in staff pay and social welfare contributions; and €1,267 million in procured goods and services.
Promoting economic development
More than €5,000 million in new medium- and long-term finance for sole proprietors and companies.
Spain’s second largest distributor of ICO-sponsored financing, with a 20.5% market share.
The launch of BStartup and BStartup 10, designed to help entrepreneurs create their business plans.
Continued development of the “Export For Growth” programme to promote internationalization of small and medium-sized business.
Minimizing the impacts on people
affected by restructuring
Banco Sabadell has organized an assistance programme to mitigate the impact of redundancies following the takeover of Banco CAM:
An outplacement programme continuing until March 2014 for 1,250 employees made redundant: 316 former bank employees are enrolled in the scheme, which includes advice to employees and their spouses on finding employment. 33% of employees enrolled in the scheme have already found work.
A revitalization plan to restore former levels of employment in the affected region: 629 jobs were created in the levant regions with the help of financial subsidies for newly-created jobs, the provision of finance on favourable terms and other measures.
Preventing social exclusion
Special assistance for customers at risk from social exclusion.
The Bank offers solutions other than repossession for mortgage defaulters: extensions of repayment terms, grace periods and interest rate reviews. There are no forced repossessions.
Banco Sabadell has signed up to the Spanish government-sponsored Code of Good Banking Practice and Agreement for the Creation of a Social Fund for Housing.
Contributing 260 residential units to the Social Fund for Housing and providing 186 residential units free of charge for the use of charitable organizations helping people in difficulty.
Fighting corruption
Banco Sabadell has subscribed to the 10 Principles of the United Nations Global Compact and is committed to applying the principles in fighting corruption in all its forms.
The Bank has established due diligence rules and procedures to keep a watch on the accounts it manages and to detect all activities related to money laundering or the financing of terrorism.
Responsible finance
The Equator Principles: in 2014 assessments of environmental and social risks will be extended to corporate loans in addition to the assessments already being applied to the financing of large projects.
New global energy model: investing in and providing finance for renewable energy sources.
Socially responsible investment: more than €70,000 donated to NGOs from the proceeds of three socially responsible investment products marketed by the Bank. These products exclude investments in controversial areas of business and give preference to companies included in the FTSE4GOOD stock market index.
Our BanSabadell 25 FP and BanSabadell Pensiones EGFP SA pension funds are signatories to the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI).
Social commitment
€4.33 million invested in community support and cultural initiatives.
The Bank contributes to community development and provides sponsorship for talent through the Banco Herrero Foundation Prize for Research in the Social Sciences, the Banco Sabadell Prize for Biomedical Research, the UPFempren Prize for entrepreneurial initiative by students, the ESADE Alumni and Banco Sabadell Prize for Best Business Start-up, and other programmes.
A healthy organization
Equality, work-life balance and social integration
Banco Sabadell guarantees equality of opportunity in all areas of employee relations: recruitment, training, promotion, working conditions, etc.
The Equality Plan and the Equality Plan Monitoring Committee set up by Bank and employee representatives.
Integration and disability: 170 disabled employees. Procurement of services and supplies from special employment centres for the disabled.
Work-life balance: an agreement between the Bank and union representatives on flexible working hours, shorter working days, leave of absence (to care for a sick relative, etc.), special leave of absence and paternity leave.
In 2013 the Bank carried out its latest workplace atmosphere survey based on a sample of 780 employees of whom 66% thought that “all things considered, I’d say this is a great place to work”.
Community support and volunteer work
In 2013, 37 volunteers from Banco Sabadell took part in a Financial Education Programme in schools all over Catalonia. This pioneering initiative aims to help school children learn to handle money and understand the basics of financial management. The programme will be run for a second time in 2014 with the help of 111 current employees and 15 retired employees of the Bank who will be holding workshops for children in fourth year of secondary school.
Supporting and publicizing the work of charitable organizations in which employees can get involved such as UNICEF, Food Bank and TV3’s fundraising telethon La Marató.
Environmental sustainability
Action against climate change: the Bank is a signatory to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and has been making its CO2 emissions public since 2009. Since then it has succeeded in reducing its overall emissions by 77% by purchasing almost 100% of its electricity from green suppliers.
Sustainable building: Banco Sabadell has LEED NC Gold certification for environmentally friendly construction at its new Central Services headquarters, and is a partner in the GreenBuilding Programme for the sustainable construction of its logistics centre and general archive.
Environmental management certified to the ISO14001 standard; 15% of group employees in Spain work in one of the six certified Central Services buildings.
Social innovation
Developing collaborative platforms to leverage the creative abilities of employees, customers and consumers.
BSIdea – a social network for employees’ ideas and suggestions for improvement. Everyone in the organization is challenged to produce ideas for niche innovations. Lectures are given by visiting experts on market trends.
BS Carpooling, a car sharing platform.
The Bank is financial partner to teaming.net, a crowdfunding platform which generates large numbers of small contributions to deserving causes.
feedback.bancsabadell.com and our suggestions page on Facebook are places where customers and consumers can get involved in promoting service innovations. More than 7,000 visits and 5,000 comments are received each month.
A first series of lectures on innovation and creativity for employees, featuring guest speakers provided by strategic partners of the Bank. These have included our advertising agency SCPF, Teléfonica I+D and Apple.
A strategic alliance with our main technology suppliers HP, IBM and Telefónica has led to the development of innovative solutions for the banking industry.
