Seylan Bank is committed to sustainability and sustainable banking. In fact, the bank’s core strategy inexorably links the two, explains Champika Dodanwela, Chief Financial Officer at Seylan Bank, who also aptly oversees the bank’s sustainability activities.

AT SEYLAN BANK, SUSTAINABILITY MATTERS.

Sustainability begins with the core business. We are committed to ensuring the bank’s operations portfolio is prudently managed transparently to deliver value to all our stakeholders, recognising that responsible banking can contribute to sustainable economic and social development while ensuring the safety of our environment.

Sustainability reflects in our motto, The Bank with a Heart. It connotes our commitment to being a bank that is just, fair, and consistent. Everything we do goes beyond a simple transaction – we work with a passion to cater to customers’ immediate needs and secure their future well-being.

Sustainability is etched into our vision to be one of the leading financial services providers in Sri Lanka – as recognised by all our stakeholders. It is also core to our mission to provide our customers with financial services that meet their needs in terms of value, pricing, delivery, and convenience.

We have reduced our carbon footprint with electricity, fuel, paper and water consumption decreasing despite the increase in transaction volumes and our reach over the past few years. However, sustainability goes beyond that. While the banking industry is one of the least polluting industries, our approach to sustainability takes a 360-degree view. We have adopted several measures to contain our carbon footprint and make sure our processes support paperless customer-friendly banking that generates value and efficiency to maximize the return to all our stakeholders.

Our sustainability strategy is a core component of our business strategy, and as such, it focuses on various stakeholders like shareholders, suppliers, customers, employees, and business partners who collectively recognise the need to be responsible for negating and mitigating direct and indirect harmful impacts on the community, environment, and the country as a whole. We connect all of them through our sustainable banking proposition.

SHAREHOLDERS:

There is a sustainability sub committee within the board of directors setting the agenda and giving leadership to all our sustainability initiatives. The board had approved an ESMS (environmental and social management system) that we now diligently use to monitor progress and identify gaps in the bank’s policies and processes for immediate remedial action. The bank actively engages with other national-level sustainability initiatives like the Central Bank’s Sustainable Finance Roadmap. Aligning shareholders to our sustainability vision requires the bank to deliver consistent returns that meet their expectations.

BUSINESS PARTNERS AND SUPPLIERS:

We collaborate with our business partners, key industry players and stakeholders to support sustainable banking propositions, establish a culture of sustainable financing in the country, and actively contribute to national-level environmental and social strategies. We also have partnerships with dedicated eco-friendly organisations for wider reach in conservation for more impact. We have a network of more than 300 correspondent banks around the world in different jurisdictions, so we need to ensure that all of us are compliant with all the rules and regulations to sustain our businesses.

When it comes to our suppliers, we screen them for environmental and social compliance at the contracting and procurement stage and educate them on environmental impact assessment and mitigation as a means of building an inclusive culture that focuses on environmental and social well-being.

CUSTOMERS:

Taking sustainability to our customers is about creating value and delivering them convenient and superior banking experiences, which is why we have invested significantly in developing our digital banking platforms. Going beyond those, we continuously engage them, actively advocating the management of environmental and social risks in their businesses as we build a mutually-beneficial culture of sustainability with them.

We have an exclusion list of industries and activities that can harm the environment and society, so we do not lend. We do extensive environmental and social due diligence before we lend, and if there are any gaps, we always guide and direct our customers on the corrective measure.

EMPLOYEES:

Sustainability is about giving employees every opportunity and the resources to grow in an environment that recognises and rewards hard work, initiative and innovative thinking and does not tolerate discrimination of any form. Our employees are the drivers of the bank’s sustainability business. Thoughtfully crafted awareness programmes ingrain the importance of natural resource conservation and the adoption of environmental and social best practices to the business case. There are continuous training, monitoring, and capacity building programmes on ESG and environmental and social risk management systems. As agents of sustainability, we enable them to conduct compliance audit trails as a means of educating customers and building environmental and social literacy.

COMMUNITY:

We have several initiatives to improve financial inclusion in this country, from branch and ATM network expansion to refurbishment, innovative product development and investing in digital banking solutions, with the single purpose of improving accessibility and generating more value for our customers. Of our many CSR projects is one building school libraries.

So far, we have completed over 200 library projects and now trying to develop an e-library to extend our reach and impact. Together with our Tikiri Children’s Savings value proportion and education loans, there is a lot we are doing to improve access to better education and inculcate the habit of savings to spur financial literacy.

Our support to communities was also aptly demonstrated during the pandemic when we committed significant financial arrangements to support entrepreneurs and needy businesses on top of the moratoriums to ensure that jobs and livelihoods were sustained.

Women-led businesses and SMEs are important segments of the bank’s sustainability agenda. While we provide capital and financing solutions that they need, we also have extensive programmes to improve their financial literacy, hone their leadership skills and better organise and manage their businesses so that they can become more bankable. We are particularly proud of our efforts to link local businesses with export markets with training programmes to build capacity and technical ability to go global.