Taipei Times: Would you shed more light on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its role in Standard Chartered Bank?
Mark Devadason: It is a way of doing business — a part of our sustainability model. It is an element that leads to success. For a company to be successful, it has to be clear about what it is and what it does. As a bank, we have a very clear strategy on how to be a leading international bank in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
We also need to be aware that the world is a dynamic place. For the last 10 years, we have seen the shift of economic power from the West to the East, which is playing to our strength.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
Sustainable business involves the way we work with people and the community and the government. We do believe having a sense of community — not only working within the community, but also participating in the community — is a positive aspect of our business. We think that drives many aspects of how we grow as a brand.
Staff engagement, for example, is one of the key areas of our sustainability agenda. If staff members feel that they work for a company that does the right thing, they are more engaged and more involved. That is why we have been developing employee volunteering programs over the last four years.
We have about 80,000 employees worldwide and we have doubled in size in the last five years. We have decided that every member of staff is entitled to two days of employee volunteering leave (a year). During the financial crisis, we actually increased this to three [days]. That is a potential 240,000 days worth of voluntary work within the community.
TT: Does socially responsible activity help deliver concrete financial results?
Devadason: I don’t think it is concrete and I don’t think it has to be. Being successful is important for any business. To that end, you have got to have a business with a strong strategy and stay dynamic to change. That has got to be at the center. In my opinion, what you do in a community and how you manage people builds how the brand is perceived. That is part of building a brand people want to be associated with. When people buy products, they make decisions between what is on offer.
TT: How does Standard Chartered differentiate from its competitors in CSR activities?
Devadason: Every country has lots of different CSR activities. As a younger man, I never could tell what it added up to. So we focus on a few big things. “Living with HIV” is a program based around education and awareness about the challenges of living with HIV.
In some countries in Africa, you cannot pretend the disease is not happening. Twenty percent of our staff might have it or their family might be impacted. That is a reality of doing business in Africa. Standard Chartered has fully trained and certified HIV trainers in each of our markets. There are 28 in Taiwan. Their job is to educate people and increase understanding about the issue. Another program, “Seeing Is Believing,” is about preventable blindness, and we raise awareness and money for that cause.
Preventable blindness and AIDS are two big social issues where we do business.
Recently, we have been focusing on female empowerment in India and Africa. As our business is impacted by GDP growth, we have identified issues that have an impact on community and GDP. Because we look at global issues but apply ourselves locally, we can have more of an impact.
TT: The financial crisis decreased CSR spending for many corporations, but Standard Chartered Bank did not appear to be affected. Would you explain why?
Devadason: Last year, we delivered a record revenue and profit. The reason for that is we stick to what we know. There is a reward for that. During the financial crisis, we had strong capital because we didn’t lose capital in real-estate lending so we were in a strong position to support our core clients.
With strong capital, we can stand by our clients in difficult times and we are in a good position to stay consistent in our CSR activity.
In a recession, you can acquire others’ problems, because banks get very tough with customers and throw them out. But in some markets in the last two to three years, we actually started to acquire new customers.
TT: What is the rationale behind your sponsorship of Liverpool Football Club, which started last year?
Devadason: Despite our success, we felt that the awareness of Standard Chartered as a brand is still quite low, other than in a few places like Hong Kong and Singapore. So we needed to raise our profile and we needed a vehicle to do that.
The English Premier League is one of the most watched sporting events across our markets and Liverpool is one of the top five global soccer teams in terms of brand association. So we decided to partner with it. We’re bringing Liverpool to Asia next month. The team is going to China, South Korea and Malaysia.
TT: What’s Standard Chartered Bank’s development plan in the Asia-Pacific region? What role does Taiwan play in the plan?
Devadason: We need to build a brand to support our business strategy. The fastest-growing markets we have are basically in the Greater China area, Indonesia and India. The Greater China region accounts for a lot of business.
We have seen exciting growth in Taiwan. You see we bought Hsinchu International Bank (新竹國際商銀) and Asia Trust and Investment Corp (亞洲信託) in the last few years, but people still think of us as a foreign bank.
Yes, we are a foreign bank, but we are also a local bank in Taiwan, in Indonesia, in Thailand and in Malaysia. For Taiwanese companies that are trading in Asia and the Middle East, we can do a lot of work for them and support them with trade flows.
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