CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

Financial Capital

Financial Capital, in broad terms, is the pool of funds available to a company to support business activities and produce greater gains in the future. It can also be obtained through financing, operations or investments.

Contribute to a strong and stable financial sector through our moderate risk profile

• With legislations becoming more stringent in the banking industry, AfrAsia understands that compliance is more important than ever. Internal control and risk mitigation measures were implemented to ensure that relevant laws, regulations and internal policies are adhered to.

Long-term Financing and Investments, and Financing with a Positive Impact

• The Equator Principles ensure that long-term financing also takes into consideration environmental and social issues. These principles are clearly delineated in some contracts with external parties.

Intellectual capitalAfrAsia Bank is reinforcing its intellectual capital through the following ways:

Expand our digital offering and reshape our distribution model to meet evolving client needs.

• New technologies combined with heightened customer expectations have imposed greater needs for banks to reinvent and adapt their models.

Business Ethics

• The Bank’s success is founded on our unwavering commitment to professional and personal integrity, honesty and ethics. Our Board of Directors and Senior Management have adopted strong corporate governance practices, which are illustrative of our ethical culture and drive our operations.
• A Code of Conduct, which contains sections on Confidentiality, Conflicts of Interest and Fair and Equitable Treatment, guides our day-to-day behaviour and upholds our commitment to be honest with each other and everyone we work with.

Manufactured capitalManufactured Capital encompasses the Bank’s tangible and intangible infrastructure, which we leverage to service our customers. This includes all forms of infrastructure, from tools, machine and buildings to technology.

• Deliver value to our clients through a stable, secure and robust IT landscape, with a high availability of systems and low losses from cybercrime and fraud.
• Accelerate the digitisation of client processes by streamlining our IT landscape, which enables us to be more agile and better prepared for the future.

Attract

Attracting the right talent is crucial. Retaining that talent is another story. Here at AfrAsia we emphasize open dialogue that enables our employees to initiate change and be leaders. AfrAsia’s strong corporate culture means that one of our hiring criteria is fitting in. The employee’s experience in the workplace ultimately determines the customer’s banking experience. Our employees are offered an array of benefits including a Graduate Management Programme, TNA, a pay and grading structure, short-term assignments in collaboration with our Canadian colleagues, resourcing, onboarding and end of employment policies, and health and welfare benefits.

Develop

Our induction programme educates new recruits on internal legal, compliance, risk and IT frameworks and procedures. The programme is currently being reviewed to make it more purposeful, and will comprise three main components: online training, classroom exposure and an event.

Retain

Retaining top talent requires being a company that employees love. We listen to what our employees have to say in order to carry out actions that will affect the workplace. Our goal is to address the concerns raised and provide a safe and inclusive work space, one that also pushes our employees to outperform themselves.

We recently launched IBL Banking Suite and the IBL Fidelity Card for all AfrAsia employees. In line with our goal to be an Employer of Choice, we offer team-building events, social gatherings, benefits, flexibility and a merit-based reward system that encourages our employees to give it their best shot.

Health & Safety

We have chosen a preventive and proactive approach to Health & Safety over a reactive one. We work alongside the Administration department to identify risks and hazards, and demand that our employees undergo trainings with Safety & Health officers. During our new recruits’ induction period, we address safety in the workplace, ergonomics, etc.

The Bank offers a comprehensive medical insurance package that includes pre- and posthospitalization, catastrophe and outpatient benefits. All employees may, from day one, take advantage of the medical coverage, which was recently revised to include treatment in Singapore as a number of our employees travel abroad for business. Screenings for certain conditions have been added as well. We conduct a yearly review based on employee feedback.

Culture shift

We took it upon ourselves to transform our company culture and foster a bolder, stronger one. 25 culture ambassadors representing each department worked together on redefining our values.

This is how DARE came to be. Our end-goal is to foster an environment in which Employee Experience (EX) is imbued with a strong sense of purpose that drives our entire team to deliver irreproachable Customer Experience (CX). The idea is simple: Happy Employees = Happy Customers.

We unveiled our new corporate identity and culture on 7 April 2017 at the Trianon Convention Centre. We even have our own official HAKA and anthem.

Social and Relationship Capital

AfrAsia Bank strives to distance itself from the outdated, narrow approach to value creation, focusing instead on building Social & Relationship Capital, which refers to the relationships the Bank fosters and nurtures with customers, investors, stakeholders, regulators, supplies and the community at large. The idea is to create a “shared value,” generating economic value that also produces value for society. Shared value reconnects the company’s success with social progress. Companies are, and should be, responsible corporate citizens.

Customer experience
Central to our EX driving CX philosophy is the customer. AfrAsia embraces a customer-centric approach that involves redefining the customer journey by building enduring steel relationships with our clients. Our creative and agile teams endeavour to deliver outstand service that makes banking a pleasant experience.

Gaining public trust

AfrAsia’s novel approach to banking and strong regional foothold has earned it a reputation as a reliable bank. We, at AfrAsia, strive to consolidate this trust by embracing transparency. We apply an open dialogue communication policy that enables us to take action based on feedback. This two-way communication style benefits our employees who have a voice, and our stakeholders seeking to understand our strategy, performance and potential to create long-term value.

Our marketing team members go beyond the traditional 4Ps, drawing attention to a fifth ‘P’ - People. At the heart of what we do are humans - the employees of the Bank and the customers. Our HR departments works tirelessly to create an exemplary employee experience, one that is conveyed to our clients. We know that happy employees = happy customers.

Engaging stakeholders through open dialogue and action on material issues raised to foster cooperative relationships

This past year, the Bank has participated in a major B2B customer survey that gauges satisfaction levels and gather feedback on products and services, in order to strategize and establish an action plan based on the data received. We value what our clients and stakeholders have to say for the simple reason that it helps us deliver accordingly.

Compliance with national and international legislation

The policies and procedures we have implemented are in line with the requirements, rules and regulations of the Law, the Bank of Mauritius and the Financial Services Commission. The Bank is also subject to on-and off site inspections, after which trilateral meetings are held between the Bank of Mauritius, external auditors and the Bank.

Procurement management

Our procurement strategy helps us achieve competitive advantage through the development of a centralized purchasing unit that enables us to gain an optimized supply base and quality standards at the right cost.

Driven by a concern for social and environmental impact, we carefully select our suppliers using a pre-qualifications questionnaire. Each purchase is assessed to determine the extent to which it may be reduced, reused or recycled. We strive to collaborate with supplies that share our concerns.

Corporate Social Responsibility

AfrAsia Foundation is our commitment to our communities; it is our effort to contribute to making the world a better place. Our projects - educational, health and environmental – share an end-goal, that is to give back to our communities and planet. We have undertaken a mix of projects to serve different groups of people and various stages of their lives and with therefore very different needs.

Natural Capital

Climate change is a top priority on our agenda. We have identified the vital need to safeguard our resources and preserve our biodiversit y, and we have embedded this understanding in all our products and services. We are measuring our impact and dependency on the Natural world, and working towards limiting it.

AfrAsia has implemented a Think Green Corporate Programme similar to the “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle” project, whose aim is to have as strong an impact as possible on the environment in the shortest timeframe, as described in our principles 7 and 8. The programme consists of two phases: the Internal one, which involves lowering the direct impact of our business on the environment, and the External one, which focuses on raising awareness on environmental issues.

The Internal phase has already been implemented within the organization. Each department has been provided waste-sorting bins to correctly classify plastic, paper, batteries and general waste in their own separate bins.

As part of their commitment to this project, our employees joined forces for a clean-up event, during which 400kgs of waste - of which 59kgs were classified as recyclable – were collected in 105 minutes; We are working towards significantly reducing our paper consumption by shifting toward electronic reports. E-statements, E-advice and E-payslips are handed out internally. Additionally, clients and shareholders are being prompted to opt for soft copies of the Annual Report. We aim to decrease our energy consumption in 2020 by 20-30% compared to 2016’s expenditure.

Our sustainability approach is firmly rooted in how we offer financing to corporations and investment services to clients. Our Environmental Sustainability Policy is based on SDGs 13, 14 and 15

We have designed our internal structure and reporting around the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) framework for a few years now. The next step in our commitment to being sustainably and socially responsible is to align our way of conducting business to our Sustainable Business Model. Our focus will be on four key areas: Marketplace, Workplace, Social and Environmental.

To this effect, a Sustainability Committee was formed on 1st July 2017. Chaired by the CEO, the committee’s goal is to redefine how we report, and bring to light day-to-day sustainable concerns that must be addressed.

We understand that a sustainable business is only achievable through the alignment of our overall strategy and our sustainability vision. This is why we intend to embark on a Global Reporting Initiative that reflects AfrAsia’s values and governance model, one where sustainability is embedded in all aspects of our value chain. This approach will be key in driving the Bank’s competitive advantage and equipping us with the tools to manage risks and capitalise on opportunities.