Importance to DFCC Bank

Key concern areas/issues

Sustainability and ESG practices are crucially important for the longevity of our business and stakeholder value creation. In dynamic macro-economic scenarios that we encounter, resilience at all levels of our operation is mandatory, to thrive in terms of performance.

• Green Financing of environment friendly projects continued, aligning with the government’s policy on conservation and climate commitments.
• Continued innovation in technological infrastructure, digitisation, and smart buildings to contribute towards sustainable energy consumption and reduced paper usage, while aligning with UN SDGs to support Agenda 2030.
• reviewing our business strategy, where necessary, to align with the government economic policies, and revamping to negate the effects of trends adversely impacting the banking industry.
• Developing resilient business strategies with a focus on sustainability.
• Creating awareness about sustainability and preservation of the environment.
• Continued compliance with the Sustainable Banking Principles of the Sri Lanka Banks’ Association Sustainable Banking Initiative (SLBA-SBI).

Conducting business to include the broader communities and ensure their resilience to economic and societal challenges.

• Conduct business encompassing ESG and sustainability principles to ensure a socially responsible business, working towards societal enhancement, while deriving a profit. reduced resource consumption and conservation of natural capital.
• Equip the marginalised with financial literacy, offer specialised services to SME and MSME segments, through capacity building via financial and non-financial services, empowering them to create positive social and environmental impacts.
• Offering entrepreneurial skills training for self-employed individuals to enhance their potential.
• Connected with Apex bodies to derive knowledge bases, continued to offer skill training to self-employed, and where necessary, re-skilling.
• Enhanced preparedness to address adverse climate conditions and resultant damage.

We believe that all employees have a right to equal opportunity sans gender, religious, or ethnic bias. Motivated employees are a key factor for growing our reputation and operating a sustainable business on ESG principles.

• Continued focus on health and well-being, with strong emphasis on work-life balance.
• Women’s empowerment is inclusive of empowerment of other vulnerable groups.
• Creating a healthy work place culture, encouraging teamwork and collaboration across all levels and functional divisions, attracting the best talent in the market, and retaining a highly skilled human capital.
• Strategically decided clear pathways for career progression, offering structured training where needed to upgrade skill, talent and knowledge.
• Team building and team cohesiveness to ensure positive and open interaction between peers and ranks.

Customer-centricity is critical in driving a profitable business and creating resilient neighbourhoods. We differentiate by leveraging the customer experience, while maintaining a product and service suite, that best achieves their aspirations.

• Providing customer-centric services and engagement across all geographic areas and divisions
• Adapting to evolving customer needs, including convenient and remote banking, keeping within the local and international requirements
• Innovate to further enhance customer-centricity and convenience i.e. digitalisation, AI tools, machine learning, and robotic process automation
• Leveraging the Bank’s reputation to gain a better share of customer wallet

The Bank’s Procurement Policy is crafted to ensure that goods and services provided by external vendors are cost effectively and ethically sourced, applying a high standard of governance.

We stringently apply the Six Guiding Principles (i.e. value for money, ethical sourcing, support of enterprise and growth, transparency, no conflict of interest, no bribery and corruption) to all our procurement requirements, while emphasising on-time delivery of our requirements, to ensure an uninterrupted flow of services to our other stakeholders.

• reducing energy and paper usage; minimising waste and use appropriate processes/technologies to ensure resource efficiency.
• Establishing dependable and sustainable sourcing and supply chains.

Timely and accurate regulatory reporting is critical to our operation as a Bank regulated by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. Similarly, we ensure accuracy, accountability, transparency, and integrity in all our communications, disseminated through a variety of channels, to our stakeholders.

• Enhanced utilisation of social media for targeted and efficient communication
• Addressing the increasing demand for transparent reporting on non-financial information, especially in ESG and sustainability.