Hana Financial Group
Few financial institutions in Asia can surely be as focused on corporate and social responsibility as Hana Financial Group, parent of top-tier domestic lender KEB Hana Bank.
Its standalone CSR report, now in its 11th year – many lenders still opt to fold any engagements with society into their annual financials – is not shy about defining what the group is all about.
Last year, in its 2016 report, Hana said its clear mission and vision was to create the right balance between corporate growth and social responsibility. Everything it does, the group says, is designed to adhere to the United Nations’ 17 sustainable development goals.
Its stated aims include creating jobs for the vulnerable; KEB Hana Bank invested Won1.5 billion ($1.4 million) in 2017 in ‘Easy Move’, a firm that builds mobility vehicles for the disabled and elderly.
Other divisions of the group seek to generate job opportunities for individuals with developmental disabilities; to support female teenagers from low-income families; and to boost national financial literacy levels.
Its external focus is just as impressive: the group opened a school in rural Nepal in February 2017, and is building libraries and computer-learning facilities in Myanmar, Vietnam and Sri Lanka.
Hana Financial Group is swimming with the tide here. Consumers in Korea, it noted in its 2016 CSR report, have become increasingly socially conscious since the global financial crisis – further encouraging the group to believe that “good corporate social responsibility leads to sustainable growth”.