Best bank for CSR: KBC Bank
KBC Bank is the best bank in Belgium for corporate and social responsibility in recognition of its philanthropic activities that include donations and employee volunteering, support of cultural initiatives, a financial literacy campaign and the launch of a social bond.
Charitable efforts include a donation of €1 million to the Belgian Red Cross to support its Covid-19 relief efforts, as well as support for educational initiatives including the DBC foundation, which provides scholarships to students from low-income families.
KBC encourages employees to volunteer for organizations in their communities; in 2022, staff volunteered over 100,000 hours.
The bank also supports a variety of cultural initiatives in Belgium, including the KBC Arts Award, which recognizes outstanding achievements in the arts. It sponsors cultural events such as the KBC Classic, a cycling race that raises money and awareness for cancer research.
The bank recently launched a new financial literacy campaign called Money Minded providing information on a variety of financial topics, such as saving, budgeting and investing, as well as a €750 million social bond that will finance projects in the hospital sector.
The bank also issued €7.4 billion in loans contributing to social objectives in 2022.
Best bank for digital solutions: BNP Paribas
BNP Paribas has invested in and improved its digital offerings through partnerships with fintech companies and continued enhancements to its website and mobile application, resulting in increased customer utilization and satisfaction. It has been named the best bank for digital solutions in Belgium this year.
Examples of fintech partnerships include those with EMAsphere and Kantox.
The integration of EMAsphere’s financial reporting tool into the easy banking business platform enhances small and medium-sized enterprises’ access to finance management solutions, while the integration of Kantox’s tools allows clients to manage currency positions and reduce cash spreads, contributing to improved financial risk management.
The bank has also invested in the digitalization of its insurance offerings. Some 35% of insurance contracts are now executed online, illustrating a growing demand for digital solutions in this sphere.
Through Hello bank!, BNPP offers fully digital banking covering insurance, investments and mortgages. Its Easy Banking App has high customer satisfaction scores, with a rating of 4.6/5 on both Apple and Google stores. The budget management and cashback tools in particular attracted substantial use and positive feedback. These features were made possible through collaborations with fintech partners Tink and Paylead. The bank has become a frontrunner in digital payments with 525,000 users across Google, Apple, Fitbit and Garmin Pay.
Best bank for ESG: KBC Bank
KBC Bank has remained on track to meet its environmental, social and governance targets this year while reducing its environmental footprint – it has now achieved a 70% reduction in its direct footprint since 2015. It has also contributed financing to environmental objectives, while offering financial products that benefit environmental and social causes.
KBC has financed €14.3 billion of environmental projects, which has resulted in a reduction of 600,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions compared with less sustainable project financing.
It has also issued Belgium’s first social bond: a €750 million eight-year deal with a coupon of 3%. The proceeds will finance investments in healthcare and hospital projects in Belgium.
The bank is rated in the top 15% of banks assessed by Sustainalytics, and responsible-investing funds now account for 37% of total assets under distribution.
Best bank for CSR: HypoVereinsbank
HypoVereinsbank (HVB) has been named the best bank for corporate social responsibility in Germany in recognition of its commitment to employee well-being and social impact initiatives.
In 2022, the bank enhanced its parental leave process, launching the Stay Connected digital portal, which allows employees on parental leave to access the internal job market, and provides information on day-care options and work-life balance resources.
Parents holding management roles can also request that their positions be left vacant for six months and that they can return to work on flexible working hours or reduced hours.
The bank’s Social Impact Banking initiative includes financial education activities and includes expert speakers and a report detailing the struggles women face meeting their financial needs and how to improve financial inclusivity.
The initiative also includes the bank’s social financing, 75.1% of which goes to welfare projects and social support services. In 2022, the bank financed municipal housing company Gesobau to build new intergenerational affordable housing in Berlin Pankow. Around 50% of the 425 flats are for tenants holding a housing entitlement certificate and 317 flats are designed specifically for wheelchair accessibility. The buildings are due to be completed in 2024.
We for the Region is another programme. It encompasses almost 65 regional projects with local charities, including 1,400 Christmas gifts for children and a donation of €3,000 made to the Curative Education Centre (HPZ) Irchenrieth, which the bank has supported for over 10 years.
Bank employees also volunteer for 100 charitable foundations, which the bank has created in collaboration with the Stifter für Stifter foundation. Staff support social causes, such as the Albrecht-Franz-Stiftung, which helps elderly people, responding to 4,000 cases each year. In February 2023, two of the bank’s foundations donated a total of €6,800 to this cause.
Volunteers (76 in total) from the bank are involved in mentoring, career guidance and supporting inclusive student teams. Since 2012, 133 HVB volunteers have successfully mentored 291 individuals through training and employment. In the last financial year, one volunteer took on his 25th mentee.
Best bank for ESG: ING
ING Bank’s commitment to sustainable and responsible banking in Germany makes the best bank for environmental, social and governance in the country this year.
In May 2022, ING launched a pilot project to embed ESG criteria into financial markets pricing – the first bank to do so. This innovative approach factors in the ESG performance of corporate customers alongside traditional credit ratings and profitability ratios, setting a new industry standard for responsible finance.
The bank has also demonstrated solid growth in sustainable financing, participating in 55 deals in Germany in 2022, marking a 175% increase over the previous year. The bank led in 24, a 60% increase from 2021. These transactions mobilised €20.8 billion of funds, a 97% increase on the year before.
The bank’s Schuldschein desk was involved in 18 transactions in 2022, totalling €4.9 billion in value. In total, 72%, or €3.864 billion worth, were green- or ESG-linked, exceeding the market average.
In the German investment-grade corporate bond market, it played a key role in 31 issues, underwriting a total of €3.5 billion. Close to 52% were ESG-linked. The bank also demonstrated leadership in green and social bonds, working on 15 issues, worth a total of €1.9 billion.
Best bank for CSR: Intesa Sanpaolo
Intesa Sanpaolo has launched several projects that have had a wide impact in Italian communities over the past year.
It is pursuing and strengthening its social commitment through numerous initiatives. In 2022, it contributed €97 million to social causes, sponsoring one of Italy’s largest social housing programmes, developing between 6,000 and 8,000 units for young and elderly people. It has also financed 15.9 million meals, 2.2 million beds, three million medical treatments, and 264,000 items of clothing for people in need.
The bank has worked towards supporting unemployed youth through its School4Life project, offering career guidance for students at risk of dropping out. It provided this resource to 850 pupils in 14 middle schools last year.
Also in education, the bank is the main sponsor of the Generation4Universities project, which aims to help students in their last year of university to embark on successful professional careers. Around 100 students from 36 universities and potential employers from 31 leading Italian companies have participated in the programme.
The lender continues to promote art and culture, opening two new museums in Turin and Naples. This brings the number of Intesa Sanpaolo’s Gallerie d’Italia locations to four, which collectively attracted 480,000 visitors in 2022.
Best bank for digital solutions: Illimity
Illimity Bank has prioritised innovation and client service this year, and has demonstrated a solid financial performance as a result.
The fully digital, cloud-based bank has entirely modular IT infrastructures, and is app-based. It claims operational IT savings of 80% to 90% over its traditional peers.
Net loans and investments to customers grew by 37% year on year, to reach €3.8 billion, while assets grew by 36% year on year to €6.4 billion. The bank saw operating profit of €131 million, an 18% increase from the previous year, and a net profit of €75.3 million, a 15% increase. Its return on equity was around 9%.
In April 2022, Illimity launched Quimmo, a platform designed to cover the complete real estate value chain and make buying and selling properties easier. It has now generated 26 million portal visits, 900,000 registered users, and more than 2,000 property transactions.
The bank focuses on providing innovative and sustainable solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises, to which end it launched b-ilty, the first digital business store of financial services and credit for SMEs. b-ilty covers the most widely used banking transactions, including providing credit and debit cards and offering SMEs short-term credit, factoring to fund working capital, medium-term credit to fund investments, and insurance cover for entrepreneurs.
The bank launched neprix in January 2023 following its acquisition of Arec, the third-largest servicer on Italy’s corporate unlikely-to-pay market, with €2.1 billion of third-party loans under management and an average gross book value of single portions of around €30 million.
Best bank for corporates: UniCredit
UniCredit is named Italy’s best corporate bank this year. Despite the slowdown in the Italian economy, it saw year-on-year revenue growth of 13% and has taken measures to support Italian corporates and the country’s sustainable ambitions.
The bank financed 13 infrastructure projects for a combined €1.2 billion over the awards period, and lent 3,500 companies in the travel and tourism industry over €400 million. It also extended €750 million to more than 5,000 companies in the agriculture sector.
Among the more notable initiatives the bank has launched is the UniCredit per l’Italia programme. This is a €5 billion package of support for companies, including around €3 billion to finance the temporary suspension of loan repayments.
The lender also demonstrated its commitment to sustainable financing, issuing €4.3 billion-worth of new environmental credit lines.
Best bank for CSR: Santander
Santander Portugal has evidenced a commitment to partnering with organizations to make positive societal changes in Portugal. It has focused on funding businesses focused on sustainability, education and culture.
The bank has devoted three new financing lines for €250 million to its corporate social responsibility activities. It has granted the most funding in terms of number of contracts signed (235) and amount awarded (€443 million, as of December 2022) of any bank to the IFRRU, a financial instrument to support urban renewal.
The bank granted a 4% salary raise to all its employees in 2022. It also awarded over 5,000 scholarships through its foundation, Fundação Santander Portugal, for university students and other adults to attain skills relevant to their professional growth.
The foundation has partnered with other educational projects such as Escola 42, which teaches programming skills along with teamwork, problem-solving and resilience. It also partnered with the My Mentor project, an educational AI platform, and Tumo, a free educational creative technology programme that will offer science, technology, engineering and maths education to 1,500 young people.
The foundation invests more than €5 million annually in the community, with a general focus on promoting social mobility, as well as a more developed, fair, inclusive and sustainable society.
Best bank for digital solutions: Santander
Santander Portugal’s new fully digital account opening process, contactless payment solutions, and other digital products and services have earned it the award for best bank in Portugal for digital solutions this year.
Digital customers represented 62% of all bank customers by the end of 2022, up from 36% in 2017. Thanks to its 100% digital account-opening process and contactless payment programmes, customers have access to ApplePay functionality and the ability to pay for things on their smart watch or other wearable device.
Around 2.6 million cards have been digitalized on electronic platforms, including at Apple, Garmin, Fitbit and online stores. The bank also launched Google Pay at the end of 2022.
Best bank for ESG: Banco BPI
Banco BPI has an impressive portfolio of sustainable business, along with a thoughtful plan to support sustainable transition and improved governance practices. Together with its market-first climate impact funds, this makes it the best bank for environmental, social and governance in Portugal.
The bank wrote €2 billion of sustainable business in 2022. It has a sustainability master plan covering 2022 to 2024 that outlines how it will continue to support sustainable transition to clean energy, promote social inclusion and lead the way in governance practices.
The bank’s sustainability accelerator programme supports companies in the transition process. It addresses decarbonization for sectors including tourism, real estate and agriculture. The programme includes free events and presentations aimed at medium and large companies.
The bank advised on and underwrote €325 million in ESG bond loans in 2022 (including deals for NOS, Sonae Sierra, Sonae MC, Lusiaves and Lidl).
It also launched a $500 million credit line to support small and medium-sized enterprises that prioritize ESG in their business models.
BPI’s climate impact funds are the first national funds that comply with Article 9 of the Financial Services Sustainability Disclosure Regulation (SFDR)’s transparency requirements.
Best bank for CSR: CaixaBank
CaixaBank has long been known for generous philanthropic investments and a wide range of corporate social responsibility initiatives in Spain.
Its social banking arm, MicroBank, is the largest microfinance bank in Europe. It offers microloans and other financing for all social groups, particularly the most vulnerable. In 2022, two key commitments were made. Firstly, €1.02 billion was extended to finance projects that generate a positive social impact, marking a 6.6% increase on 2021. Secondly, in collaboration with the European Investment Fund (EIF), support was given to Spanish small and medium-sized enterprises and mid-caps through guarantees worth €637 million. Over 18,000 businesses were estimated to have benefitted.
The La Caixa Foundation is one of the largest in the world. Last year, it dedicated €49.4 million to local social entities, establishing partnerships with food banks and creating a donation platform for 319 causes, collecting a total of €22.9 million and supporting 191 social entities.
The bank encourages volunteering, with an emphasis on education, digitization, workplace support, mentoring, care for the elderly and environmental initiatives. A total of 14,000 volunteers engaged in 27,692 activities, benefiting 480,000 recipients.
Best bank for D&I: Santander
Santander has worked to foster greater inclusivity and encourage gender equality both internally and externally and is the best bank for diversity and inclusion in Spain this year.
Acknowledging a gender imbalance at the middle-management level, the bank identified a group of female talents for focused development. Additionally, it launched communication campaigns to encourage women to apply for development programmes.
It also provided training to its recruitment teams to ensure gender equality in selecting candidates.
The bank addresses gender diversity with its clients and society through the Santander Reencuentra programme, which was established to provide an opportunity for women who had paused their careers due to family commitments and encountered challenges when seeking to rejoin the workforce.
It includes a temporary work placement at the bank and a series of development activities aimed at enhancing their employability, such as an online MBA, a digital tools course and coaching sessions.
Some 84% of the women who participated in the programme rejoined the labour market afterwards.
Best bank for digital solutions: CaixaBank
With its digital customer base of 11.2 million and its integration of blockchain and other technologies, CaixaBank is Spain’s best bank for digital solutions this year.
Imagin, the bank’s digital services and lifestyle platform became the first European fintech to establish a presence in the metaverse in 2022. It launched its own virtual-reality space and pioneered the launch of a series of non-fungible tokens dedicated to addressing the issue of ocean plastic pollution and offered to clients who deposited their salaries directly.
This project is unique in showcasing the active participation of end-users in various environmental, social and governance initiatives through the use of blockchain technology.
The bank also took the lead in incorporating chatbots into its operations. Caixa’s virtual assistant has emerged as the bank’s primary means of addressing customer enquiries, both in terms of the total number of users and the volume of questions it handles.
Through 2022, this online assistant received an average of over 50,000 questions each day and automated a total of 88 operations, streamlining administrative processes.
In the cards sector, the bank has a 30.7% market share of retailers’ turnover and 5.2 million daily payments.
In 2022, the number of credit cards downloaded via mobile phones reached 4.9 million (up from 3.8 million in 2021), while 1.9 million purchases were made with mobile phones (up 58% from 2021).
Best bank for ESG: CaixaBank
CaixaBank has taken a proactive approach to sustainable initiatives and the incorporation of environmental, social and governance criteria in Spain.
Throughout 2022, the bank successfully mobilised over €23.6 billion for sustainable projects, an increase of 27% on 2021. This included €8 billon in green financing, €1 billion in social financing, €11 billion in sustainable financing and €3 billion in intermediation.
Notably, Caixa was involved in innovative transactions such as the green guarantee for Iberdrola from Cesce (the first such deal), the largest green financing in Spain in 2022 for Aqualia, and the working-capital and foreign-trade financing lines of Solarpack, for which CaixaBank provided advice on their green financing framework.
The bank has also issued a total of 11 bonds under the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals framework between August 2019 and May 2023. These include six green bonds and five social bonds, amounting to €10.6 billion.
Caixa was the first bank in Spain to link bonuses to sustainability training, with 31,315 employees receiving ESG coaching sessions.
Best bank for corporates: HSBC
HSBC has worked on a range of key financings with an emphasis on sustainability for Spanish corporates this year.
The bank has had a presence in Spain for 40 years, and its client base now includes more than 130 domestic corporates.
It advised infrastructure developer Ferrovial on its $9 billion financing for JFK Airport, and worked on a A$1.1 billion ($699 million) Spanish export credit agency-backed covered green loan for Acciona to finance a greenfield 923 megawatt wind farm in Australia.
The bank also arranged a series of bilateral and syndicated transactions domestically, with most incorporating sustainability-linked features and key performance indicators relating to environmental, social and governance or sustainable development goals.
One notable deal saw it acting as sustainability adviser on a €310 million ESG-linked syndicated credit facility for Solarpack. Proceeds will be used to build new solar photovoltaic plants.
Best bank for CSR: Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group has a historically strong focus on corporate and social responsibility. It wins best bank for CSR this year thanks to meaningful work done to help Ukrainian refugees, support UK housing and assist small businesses across the country.
Lloyds has been among the most proactive UK financial institutions in assisting Ukrainian refugees and asylum seekers since the start of the war with Russia, helping 25,000 Ukrainian nationals open bank accounts and waiving fees on all international payments to Ukraine, including by credit card to charities.
Its own charitable foundations have supported over 70 small charities with nearly £4.5 million in grants to help thousands of refugees and asylum seekers from Ukraine and other countries.
The bank’s work in social housing is also noteworthy. It has lent a total of £14.3 billion to first-time buyers and provided £2.1 billion in new funding to the sector as a whole. As a result, 35,000 new social homes have been built and 75,000 people to have been housed.
LLoyds offers various lending and support schemes for clients. This goes further than financial assistance by providing businesses with regular economic updates and insights. It has also kept in regular contact with customers with bounce-back loans from the pandemic, providing them with information on the government’s pay-as-you-grow support options.
Best bank for D&I: Bank of America
Employee wellbeing, mental health and support for disadvantaged youth are areas of high priority for Bank of America. They were all addressed over the awards period, and BofA is named best bank for diversity and inclusion in the UK this year.
The bank has trained 120 staff members across the UK as mental-health first aiders to facilitate an open dialogue around such issues. To ensure best practice in the area, it has established partnerships with City Mental Health Alliance and Mental Health UK.
As part of the latter collaboration, the bank plans to raise £600,000 over the next two years through a combination of employee fundraising and a donation by the BofA Foundation.
In partnership with its Disability Advocacy Network, BofA has also developed a series of benefits to help neurodiverse individuals. Access to assessments with private vendors is provided to both employees and their families.
To improve health awareness among its staff, the bank piloted menopause cafes in partnership with healthcare partner Roodlane. This initiative provided employees with the opportunity to discuss health concerns related to the menopause and receive guidance and support from GPs.
The bank’s partnership with charity West London Zone has been a cornerstone of its strategy to support disadvantaged children, with an average of £44,000 of savings for the state per participant.
The bank also partners with UK social-mobility non-profit upReach to help university students with personalised support programmes. UpReach overall has helped more than 2,000 students in 2022.
Best bank for digital solutions: Lloyds
Lloyds Banking Group operates the largest digital bank in the UK and has solidified its position following a period of strong growth and channel enhancement.
Digital logins and active users grew by 15% and 8% respectively last year. Active users on the bank’s platform reached 19.8 million in 2022, more than any other bank in the country.
The bank has also achieved a 5% reduction in legacy applications, thanks to an ambitious modernization programme launched in 2021.
Some £1 billion has been earmarked for re-platforming investments by 2024, with targets set to reduce the bank’s legacy applications by 15%, move 20% of applications to the cloud and automate 60% of all commercial lending.
Lloyds has also partnered with external providers (most notably Google Cloud and Microsoft) to boost its re-platforming efforts with advances in AI, machine learning and data analytics.
Among several new products, the bank launched its cost-of-living hub across its website and mobile banking apps. The service offers customers independent help and advice, alongside a suite of money-management tools. It registered 400,000 customer visits in the first three months after launch.
Best bank for ESG: Barclays
Barclays has made visible progress across the board in environmental, social and governance, advising on large sustainability financings, enhancing its sustainable mortgages and offering more support to green startups.
The UK bank provided over £54.3 billion in social, environmental and sustainability-linked financing in 2022. It also reduced its financed emissions against a 2020 baseline by 32% – a figure that has already exceeded its 2025 target.
With a comprehensive sustainable finance framework in place, Barclays has participated in key sustainable deals in the UK this year, including the £4.5 billion tap of the government’s second green gilt, and large corporate green financings for issuers including Wessex Water, Motability Operations and Vivid Housing.
Barclays pioneered green mortgages the UK in 2018 and has now piloted a scheme offering residential mortgage customers funds to make energy-efficient home improvements. It has expanded this offering to include buy-to-let properties. These initiatives helped the bank deliver £1.6 billion of financing for green homes in 2022.
The Barclays Sustainable Impact Capital initiative, which focuses on investing in environmental startups, deployed over £45 million in 2022, providing funding for disruptive companies such as Naked Energy, MOF Technologies, ECOncrete Tech and Zedify.
The bank’s push to support sustainability startups also included signing a five-year partnership with Cambridge-based venture builder Carbon13 to assist 100 companies.
Best bank for SMEs: HSBC
HSBC has focused on improving its support of small and medium-sized businesses during a review period that culminated in its acquisition of the UK operations of Silicon Valley Bank.
The bank’s headline acquisition of SVB UK signalled its commitment to UK startups and the country’s technology and life-sciences sectors.
The bank has made notable improvements to its SME banking proposition, including its new £15 billion lending fund, demonstrating its commitment to this market segment.
In parallel, HSBC has launched a new green SME fund, providing £61 million of finance to businesses looking to improve their environmental footprint.
HSBC’s UK business banking app saw 60,000 new downloads in 2022 and HSBC Kinetic – its app for on startups and sole traders – received a 97% customer-service satisfaction score and recorded a same-day registration rate of 76%.
HSBC Kinetic drove small-business mobile loans in the UK during the review period, with over £2 million lent in the first three months of launch.
The bank also held high-profile events for SMEs, including those organized by its UK agriculture team, its sponsorship of the 2022 UK Black Business Week and show and its partnerships with The Marketing Lounge and Wired magazine.
Best bank for corporates: HSBC
HSBC has demonstrated impressive growth in its cardless Open Payments system over the review period, while expanding its foreign-exchange and supply-chain solutions. It has also advised on several landmark deals in the UK.
The bank’s Open Payments business reached seven million active users in 2023, while 8.5 million successful payment initiations were recorded in January, representing a 221% year-on-year increase. That has driven improvements in working capital and lower payment costs for corporates.
HSBC also launched its instant supply-chain finance programme, which uses AI to enable early payment of suppliers’ invoices. It is the first supply-chain finance programme in the UK to offer financing prior to invoice acceptance.
