WSBI ESBG
Regional
Enable financial inclusion around the world
WSBI and ESBG members are committed to building a financially inclusive society.
A pledge to financial inclusion is outlined in WSBI positions to G20 leaders and in its commitment to World Bank Group’s Universal Financial Access goal. Financial inclusion projects tackle product accessibility and affordability as well as ways to get closer to clientsthrough proximity networks in both remote and underserved areas. Financial education is an important pathway to financial inclusion, which impacts all ages.
Making a Responsible Contribution to the Community
Sustainability means more than just green. It holds a deeply profound social dimension that is part of the DNA of WSBI-ESBG members. Savings and retail banks place a strong social commitment, a factor that differentiates them from other actors in the financial sector and are a driver for job creation and economic growth. As it forms a central role within their identity, WSBI-ESBG member banks:
- Link their business aims and success to the needs of local communities and society in which they operate, over and beyond their customer base.
- Drive local economic growth, entrepreneurship and jobs.
- Develop, implement, and support a wide scope of social initiatives to achieve a more inclusive society.
- Engage with communities through multi-stakeholders partnerships and corporate philanthropy, in such fields as medical and scientific research, arts and culture, social entrepreneurship, education, integration, as well as the preservation of natural and historical heritage.
- Commit to integrity and ethics among staff, management and governing bodies.
- Can adopt government structures which allow for democratic backing and supervision from local communities
- Act self-sustaining and prevent the public from socialised losses.
Promotion of Accessibility and Financial Inclusion
As fair partners for all segments of society, WSBI-ESBG member banks:
- Serve all segments of the population, from younger people to those who, due to their advanced age, lack access to digital banking services to widen financial inclusion.
- Promote savings and facilitate access to modern financial products and services that are tailored to the financial profile of the person concerned, including those with lower incomes or modest means.
- Ensure banking accessibility and proximity, close-to-customer banking close at hand by means of their dense network of branches throughout the country, including low populated and economically disadvantaged areas, and via a well-developed range of electronic access channels.
- Make branches and distribution channels as accessible as possible to elderly people, persons with physical disabilities or impairments.
- Provide high-quality financial education programmes to fulfil the commitment of providing citizens with a better knowledge of financial issues that will enable them to make informed choices through their lives, thus helping a more resilient society.
WSBI ESBG latest
August 11, 2022
An opportunity for the banking sector to work with informal savings groups in Morocco
Tontine, an ancestral practice, is tending to modernize thanks to digital technology.
August 10, 2022
State Aid rules for banks in difficulty
The European Savings and Retail Banking Group (ESBG) welcomes the initiative of the European Commission to launch a targeted consultation aiming at reviewing the State Aid rules for banks in…
August 3, 2022
International Sustainability Standards Board consultation on Sustainability Disclosures
The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) has been established at COP26 with the purpose of developing a comprehensive global baseline of sustainability disclosures for the capital…
July 27, 2022
Leading and managing change to reach low-income savers in Nigeria
Leading and managing change to reach low-income savers in Nigeria
July 25, 2022
Unpacking the customer through demand side data
WSBI's Scale2Save programme launched the sixth case study of its Savings and Retail Banking in Africa research series. This publication Unpacking the customer through demand side data gives examples…
July 20, 2022
For a single market for data to push growth and innovation
A European approach to data is essential to ensure competitiveness, avoid fragmentation, benefit from an effect of scale and guard against windfall effects from which certain non-European players…