CSR in Taiwan Financial Industry

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publication of CSR report. However, the role of MOEA is more like guidance to CSR rather than enforcing the execution of corporate social responsibility.

Some public relations consultants are also providing tailored-made service on CSR approaching. Some companies even list “awarding winning strategy” as one of the key services. Mostly, these companies are approached by corporates with needs of media arrangement and event management for a CSR event.

3.1. CSR in Taiwan Financial Industry

Across various industries in Taiwan, financial industry seems to have a more sophisticated corporate social responsibility approach. From banking, securities to insurance, you can see loads of media reporting about the CSR activities from the industry. An interview reporter also revealed that he received media invitation for these events almost every day.

There are dedicated CSR, or sustainability, specialists in most of the financial institutions.

Most of them are under the public relations, or corporate communications or corporate affairs department. Few of them have a dedicated team for CSR or sustainability team in the department but this is still rare. The team can be found in mostly large-scale financial corporates, international firms or the foundation/ trusting fund of the financial institutions.

Large-scale international banks in Taiwan such as Citi Bank and Standard Chartered Bank have a team of 2 to 3 people under their Corporate Affairs Department responsible for communicating the CSR or sustainability strategy internally and externally. These companies have a global theme or key pillar to support their sustainability programs. Taking Citi as example, they have a Citi Foundation that serves as the key platform for Citi to demonstrate

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the corporate social responsibility. With various scopes including environment protection, microfinance, financial access and building, Citi has a solid foundation in corporate social responsibility. The bank also encourages employees for local community engagement. The engagement does not limited to generic volunteering, but also welcomes any forms of community service initiated by the employees where they can make use of their knowledge to contribute to the society.

In Taiwan, female immigrants who are married to Taiwanese as well as aborigines are the two groups with lower financial literacy. The female immigrants who are also regarded as “foreign wives” mostly have lower education level and their marriages are more unstable. Most of them are married to male with lower social status and are unemployed after coming to Taiwan due to lower education level as well as cultural barrier. If they are devoiced, they are forced to become financial independent but they have low level of financial literacy. Therefore Citi partnered with an NGO to offer financial knowledge to these women. Their employee then can make use of their profession in financial knowledge to educate the women about concept on financial management such as book keeping, while the social workers from NGO will help check the results and status of these women.

Another international bank in Taiwan, Standard Chartered, is having most of its markets in Africa, Asia and Middle East, which are with long daily sunlight exposure. The exposure to solar and ultra light is blamed to be the cause of eye disease. Due to poverty in these markets, avoidable blindness is not well treated and has led to other health problem. Therefore in 2004 Standard Chartered launched a global program “Seeing is Believing” to help people in developing countries to prevent avoidable blindness. Under this large umbrella, the bank has developed various activities in the world. For Taiwan, as the medical standard is high, lack of

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medical treatment is not a key problem. Standard Chartered’s initiative for “Seeing is Believing” becomes promoting inclusion to the blinds. The bank adopted the theme of its global program and changed the content into inclusive employment opportunity to the blinds.

“Standard Chartered Visually Impaired Employment Advisory Council” was established in 2013 with the funding from Standard Chartered to help the blinds for a more diversified employment opportunities in Taiwan, as the blinds are limited to work as message workers mostly on the island.

Another example can be seen in Prudential Financial in Taiwan. The financial giant is one of the first foreign insurance companies entering Taiwan. For them, what means to corporate sustainability is “doing business the right way”. After the 2008 financial crisis, they are one of the few financial institutions who were not impacted by the crisis. Obligation to legal and compliance are the key focus of the corporates and it is consistent in every of its markets. The rationale of having this as their key pillar of CSR is that most of their assets under management are pensions, insurance or annuities of their clients, which are the assets that offer clients with financial securities in their future. These assets have to be well managed when growing their scales. By aligning their business nature to the corporate social responsibility, they reward the society with its intuitive nature of the business.

It is also worth noticing that these international financial institutions have a more complete scope in terms of corporate social responsibility. From supplier management to client management, there are guidelines derived from the core value of their CSR pillars. For example, Citi, Prudential and Standard Chartered required their suppliers to oblige to anti-bribery laws. For employees, “Inclusive and diversity” working environment is guaranteed. For community, employee volunteering is encourage while some of them even

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offer volunteering leaves to encourage large variety of community service. For environment, these companies all promote energy saving. Standard Chartered even stops providing paper cups for guests due to environment concerns. Prudential turned off all the light during lunch break to save unnecessary use of energy.

When interviewing the foreign financial institutions in Taiwan, they all stated clearly that corporate social responsibility is not the duty of public relations departments nor is only about charity. It is a good cause that embedded in every element of the companies and is represented by every employee. For example, diversification and inclusion employment means how every employee are evaluated and recruited at the same standard regardless to their sexuality, gender, race, family status and age. This has to be supported by all employees rather than a few managements who determined the talent acquisition policies. The employees have to understand and support the idea before it can be entirely implemented.