Boubyan Bank releases its 2023 sustainability report and vision
KUWAIT: Boubyan Bank released its 4th Sustainability Report for the year 2023, titled: “Integration into Corporate Strategy” to reflect the bank’s initiatives towards adopting proactive practices that effectively contribute to our sustainable ESG approach.
Sustainability Report 2023.
In this regard, Boubyan Bank’s CEO - Private, Consumer, and Digital Banking, Abdullah Al-Tuwaijri, stated: “Thanks to Almighty Allah, Boubyan Bank continued making a clear progress on its ESG goals in 2023, while sparing no effort to build a more inclusive and sustainable future for everybody, while reinforcing and integrating sustainability elements into the bank’s overall strategy and business practices.”
“The report has become one of the key pillars through which Boubyan reinforces its priorities and reviews the leading stories towards emphasizing sustainability principles and assessing the extent to which ESG practices are mature, in addition to the roadmap towards fostering a sustainable future.”, he added.
Al-Tuwaijri went on to add: “Boubyan Bank always seeks to safeguard shareholders’ rights, protect the investment value, and minimize conflict of interest through commitment to implementing all standards, and enhancing the role of shareholders in participating in decision-taking processes related to their investments.” On his part, Boubyan Bank’s Executive Manager - Business Continuity and Sustainability, Khaled Abdulwahab Al-Haqqan, stated: “We are proud of the progress we have made on instigating sustainable development and change, not only on the level of the bank but also community-wise.
This came in line with our clear strategy and vision to be a champion for sustainable development, governance, and responsible practices to make a positive change, which reflects positively on our customers and employees.” “Boubyan adopts a strategic pathway that incorporates international sustainability metrics and the implementation approach thereof in a manner that guarantees mitigating risks, reinforcing its core banking business, and improving customer satisfaction levels to ensure the highest levels of services”, he added.
Special strategy
Al-Haqqan added: “Boubyan continues its efforts to drive sustainable growth across all of its group companies, whilst maintaining its core values of being Innovative, Empowering, and Driven. The Boubyan ESG Strategy 2029 will prove to be essential in effecting the needed change to achieve Boubyan’s vision of becoming a leading Islamic bank that advocates sustainable development across all of its operations worldwide.”
Al-Haqqan reviewed the ESG strategy, which focuses on integrating the mission and vision into the internal and external ESG elements, while setting broader performance measurement goals through KPIs, in addition to focusing on stakeholders and identifying compliance and goals against international standards. He elaborated: “In this report, we explore Boubyan Bank’s journey towards incorporating sustainability metrics into its operations to ensure sustainable growth through actions that include minimizing environmental footprint, uplifting socio-economic well-being, and the ESG strategy.”
Transparency and governance
The report dwells on Boubyan Bank’s commitment to implementing robust governance through accountable board performance, data and information security, and transparent disclosures, in addition to risk-control approach, ESG management, corporate governance, and ethical practices across the bank’s operations. Boubyan Bank adopts a policy of protection of shareholders’ rights and respecting the same, based on the principles of transparency and equality, including compliance with all laws, regulations, and instructions governing the bank with regard to the protection of their rights, in addition to adopting a policy for the protection of stakeholders’ rights.
Digital transformation
The report further highlights Boubyan’s strategy towards digital transformation that showed a swift response to the accelerating growth of its banking solutions and services, which would improve customer service and align with the total transformation aiming at the digitalization of services in line with a well-studied strategy, especially amid the boom of the digital Islamic banking industry worldwide, thus leading the bank to be named the “World’s Best Islamic Digital Bank” for the past 9 years in a row.
Through well-studied steps, Boubyan managed to be among the early Islamic financial institutions to consider digital transformation as the fulcrum of regional expansion and the upgrade of the digital infrastructure, driving the percentage of the users of Boubyan App for smart phones to 73 percent and 72 percent of retail and corporate customers respectively.
The report reiterates Boubyan Bank’s commitment to sparing no effort to evaluate and improve customers’ experience. Boubyan Bank further remained atop the pyramid of customer service by being named the “Best Islamic Bank in Customer Service” for the 14th year in a row since 2010. This award reflects the bank’s commitment to adopting the best international practices in customer service, which confirms the solid leadership of Boubyan and its exceptional contributions in this area atop of all institutions of the financial sector in Kuwait.
Leadership and inclusiveness
The report further highlights the bank’s role and ongoing efforts to guarantee an inclusive and engaging work environment for its employees, who represent the main engine of the ongoing success of the bank. The group adopts a number of initiatives and training programs in collaboration with international institutions at the hands of the most prominent training specialists, while improving the best careers, and the ways of career progress amid an exceptional work environment. Accordingly, the number of staff who attended specialized training programs reached 81.3 percent.
Boubyan is keen on offering equal job roles to all national cadres regardless of their gender in order to ensure equality among them. With respect to the empowerment of women in leadership positions, 13.98 percent of our bank employees are female, while our Kuwaitization rate increased to 70 percent across all job levels, with an 89.5 percent Kuwaitization rate at the level of top management. Moreover, 68 percent of promotions in BLME, our UK subsidiary, were awarded to women, and the female employee ratio reached 46 percent at BLME.
SMEs’ support
Furthermore, the report has a special section dedicated to Boubyan Bank’s commitment to supporting SMEs, as well as supporting the growth of the Kuwaiti economy through the bank’s products and services, which cater for the needs of the bank’s SME customers. As a result, Euromoney International and Global Finance recognized the bank with the award for the “Best Bank for SMEs in Kuwait” and the “The Best SME Banking in Kuwait - Digital” respectively, in recognition of the bank’s achievements over the past years in supporting SMEs, in addition to the bank’s outstanding contribution to giving SMEs a foothold in the local economy by offering them many services that cater for their business needs.
Corporate social responsibility
The most outstanding aspect about Boubyan Bank’s CSR program is its diverse domains through the bank’s various contributions, volunteer, and charitable efforts, through which the bank seeks to confirm the need for the participation of the private sector in order to ensure sustainability across various business areas. 2023’s CSR strategy reflected Boubyan Bank’s commitment to setting specific standards targeting ongoing engagement with customers, staff, and others, aiming to have a positive and targeted effect on the bank’s journey and its growth to achieve sustained growth.
Environmental sustainability
The report highlights Boubyan’s efforts towards measuring and implementing sustainable practices to reduce the carbon footprint, energy & water consumption, and waste generation, with clear plans already developed to contribute to addressing such issues. The bank installed 22 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations with dedicated parking slots at the new Boubyan HQ, while introducing exclusive promotions and discounts on electric cars, further demonstrating the bank’s vision regarding the environment and encouraging environmental awareness, as well as the bank’s commitment to environmental sustainability.
Further to the efforts to reduce emissions, Lean initiatives have led to the reduction of paper consumption by more than 145,000 papers during the year, in addition to saving 3,432 papers through the Tablet Initiative for Universal Bankers. Additionally, the bank has successfully reduced its Scope III emissions due to employee commute by 3 percent, thus, reducing emissions by 0.025 MT Co2e due to the “Paper Recycling” initiative.
1st highlight
Boubyan managed to become a leading franchise despite the fierce competition among the banking sector’s institutions, thus following a tailored path that reinforces customer satisfaction levels, leading to receiving a 95 percent Customer-Satisfaction Index score among all Islamic and conventional local banks, in addition to a Net Promoter Score of 73 percent.
2nd highlight
The OHI survey taken by all employees of the bank returned extremely positive results, with an 86 percent participation rate among all the bank’s employees. The survey revealed the satisfaction of 84 percent of the bank’s staff, which is a great percentage that places Boubyan Bank in the top decile globally among all organizations that took the survey.
3rd highlight
Boubyan Bank managed to stand out as an excellent role model in CSR and in the support of sustainability through many events and initiatives that emphasized the bank’s social excellence, locally and regionally, which were crowned with the “World’s Best Islamic Bank for CSR” award by Global Finance in recognition of the bank’s achievements over the past period.
Al-Haqqan:
We are committed to bringing a positive change to the environment and the society through sustainable practices.
