PILLAR 2: MARKETPLACE RESPONSIBILITY: FOCUSING ON CLIENT CENTRICITY AND QUALITY (Financial Capital, Manufactured Capital and Intellectual Capital)

The marketplace responsibility pillar demonstrates how we, at AfrAsia, manage our relationship with our customers, suppliers and business partners. We also ensure that high ethical standards are maintained across our business, which is critical for the Bank’s reputation.

Starting last year, we have started to further develop the financial aspect of this pillar.

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With the ever growing concern from investors in regard to climate risks and the transition to a low-carbon economy, we, at AfrAsia, aim to work in collaboration with international agencies to provide Green Financial Mechanisms for our clients.

This financial year has been a year for consolidation of our sustainability department. The team has started to work with on various programmes to give our customers opportunities to invest in climate solutions.

By next year, we aim to have at least 2 financial solutions in place at the Bank.

AfrAsia Bank is known for its “Bank Different” philosophy. As part of this journey, the Bank has been involved in various initiatives to position itself as a sustainable brand. These include:

Last year marked a milestone for our HR department. As part of Phase 2 of the Oracle HCM system, AfrAsia went live with the following modules deployed on the cloud:

1. Recruitment
2. Learning
3. Talent and Succession
4.  Compensation and Benefits

Oracle Self Service Human Resources (HR) enables our HR department to update and use AfrAsia Bank’s employee specific information, online via a browser, that is personalized to an individual's role, experience, work content, language and information needs.

These four modules have really helped the organisation as a whole to achieve these following results:

A robust compliance system protects the Bank against investments and transactions that may be linked to terrorism, child labor, human trafficking etc. Our compliance department ensures that a due diligence is carried out on all potential partners of the Bank. This due diligence process is an in-depth search, which looks at the company and its directors in a 360 degrees. Even for dealings with our suppliers, we ensure that:

1. Financial soundness clearance is received from Credit Department
2. Compliance Clearance is received from Compliance Department

Our Compliance department has set forth policies and procedures that provide guidelines to our employees to detect money laundering, corruption, fraud and anti-competitive practices. We also have a Corporate Integrity and Whistle Blowing Policy that allows our staff detect and report irregularities. These irregularities are then investigated and may lead to disciplinary actions.

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As a Bank, we deal with sensitive data from our clients, employees and partners on a day to day basis. We remain committed to ensure that we comply with the latest Mauritian and International data protection frameworks so that our operations provide a high level of data security.

Data security breaches are a threat for not only our reputation but also come with huge costs for the Bank.

Various initiatives have been implemented since the past years in order to ensure compliance and protect the data of our stakeholders:

1. Data classification has been implemented to ensure proper classification and protection of data. This also controls access to data on a need to know basis.

2. Device security is catered for inside and outside the Bank to detect and correct potential problems that can be used by attackers to gain access to its systems as well as protect devices inside and outside the Bank. Penetration tests and vulnerability assessments are regularly conducted to detect any weaknesses in systems and take corrective action.

3. Our employees are regularly trained in the fundamentals of IT security and to this end, various courses have been conducted:

• Security Awareness Fundamentals on the basics of security, completion rate 78%.
• GDPR Awareness Training – teaching our staff about the requirements of GDPR and how to use data securely, reaching a completion rate of 93%.
• Safe Web Browsing to teach our staff how to use the Internet safely in and out of the Bank, 78% completion rate.
• Data Classification training to empower the staff to make smart decisions about sensitive data is currently ongoing.

4. We also conduct regular phishing tests since this is one of the most common sources of attacks. We are pleased to announce that the last campaign has a victim rate of 1.3% (4 staff out of 303 targeted) against the industry average of 26%.

Other interesting security statistics, which showcase the robustness of our system are as follows:

• 1.52 million spam emails blocked out of which 6778 were phishing mails. Phishing remains a very effective attack and AfrAsia wants to ensure our staff are not easy targets. We also inform end-clients if we detect that their information is being used in phishing attacks.
• 6522 malware confirmed and blocked. Our staff are aware of virus threats and regularly consult IT Security for advice if they are unsure.
• 2 fake website takedowns completed. Attackers copy our websites to try to steal details from our clients. IT Security team keeps a close watch on our website and react quickly if any fake websites are detected

AfrAsia Bank’s headoffice in Port Louis is also a historic building dating back to 1879, which is listed as a National Heritage site. Part of the AfrAsia team works in this building, which is the pride and joy of the Bank. We ensure that it is well maintained at all times. Any issues are dealt with promptly to avoid any degradation of same. In line with the Global Goals 11, we aim to continue in our efforts to safeguard and preserve this rich cultural heritage site.