PILLAR 4: SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (Social & Relationship Capital)

Our ability to sustain strong relationships with customers and the wider Mauritian community is vital for the Bank. Our approach to this pillar is divided into three main categories:

1. AfrAsia Foundation (as the basis for our Corporate Social Responsibility Commitment);
2. Engaging with our various stakeholders; and
3. Customer Experience.

With the unceasing support and guidance of AfrAsia Bank, the AfrAsia Foundation (“AF”) continues to focus on its mission of Shaping A World of Difference by funding sustainable projects that support the environment and society to help build thriving communities (Corporate Social Responsibility).

Source Sponsor An AfrAsiaKid Brochure

During the Employee Engagement Survey done in 2019, CSR scored high in terms of engagement drivers as shown by the graph below. This is an ode to the fact that AfrAsians believe in AfrAsia Foundation’s mission of Shaping A World of Difference. It also supports the below aims:

1. Continuously ensuring that AF is part of ABL’s DNA;
2.  Educate the staff on the importance of ABL’s social commitment; and
3. Increase the commitment of ABL staff towards our CSR initiatives.

AfrAsia Foundation is registered under the Foundations Act 2012, has its own charter and is governed by 18 policies whereby a company secretary, DTOS, ensures proper compliance with the policies at all times. The Foundation is also governed by 8 council members who decide to which projects the funds are allocated to.

GRI 308-2

Various health awareness initiatives have been undertaken by AfrAsia Foundation in an effort to promote awareness on the main issues affecting the Mauritian population.

The Environment Pillar of the Foundation is developed through the following initiatives:

1. Collaboration with NGOs for e.g. “Reef Conservation”, whose mission is to action on the conservation and restoration of the marine environment of Mauritius. They do so through the implementation and management of conservation, research, education and sensitization projects.
2. Greening of AfrAsia School – The Foundation would like to invest in projects such as rainwater harvesting, solar panels in order to ensure responsible management of its resources. 
3. A programme is also currently being developed to promote awareness on environmental responsibility. The beneficiary of this programme will be kids aged 6 to 11.

In view of always enhancing the experience of our customers, at AfrAsia we track and analyse our pain points through customer’s grievances. We encourage the reporting of customers concerns and use the analysis of the root causes to re-think our internal processes and by so doing, constantly challenging the status quo. This allows us to engage with our customers and to identify how we can improve the service levels. Grievances are considered as an early warning sign for us and we provide multiple channels to customers to report any disruption in their banking journey as this is an opportunity for the Bank to regain customers’ loyalty.

Channels available to customers to report grievances include:

As our customers are at the heart of everything we do, we have reinforced our complaints handling process and perform monitoring as well as reporting on a daily basis. All staff have also been sensitized to promptly report grievances and have been trained on how to handle them. The internal communication was also improved in case of customer impacting issues and this allowed a quicker turnaround time to manage potential issues prior to them impeding on the customers’ experience. All the initiatives undertaken resulted in a significant decrease in complaints level when compared to January 2018 and the Bank attained a notable achievement of having a zero official complaint month in January 2019.

Last year, we conducted a stakeholder exercise through which we classified the stakeholders according to their involvement, interest and influence in the Bank. This exercise involved identifying and prioritizing our key stakeholders in order to maintain a dialogue, correctly determine their needs and respond to their feedback in an efficient and timely manner.

Additionally, we engage with our stakeholders on sustainability topics through various means including:

• Awareness workshops for our sustainability champions

AfrAsia Bank’s Sustainability Committee is made up of “champions” from all departments of the Bank who exemplify AfrAsia’s commitment to sustainability. In May 2019, the champions were given a 1 ½ day workshop by sustainability consultants, who customized the course for the AfrAsians. The main objectives of this workshop were to:

1. Allow our champions to gain an understanding of sustainable development in real world;
2. Provide a better understanding of ABL in regard to sustainability; and
3. Equip our champions with the tools to apply sustainability in their respective departments.

Following this training, some of our champions have brought forward projects which will be implemented in this financial year.

• Employees – Internal Communication, Social Media, Emails, Integrated/Sustainability Reports
• Customers – Emails, Social Media, Integrated/Sustainability Reports
• Regulators - Integrated/Sustainability Reports
• Government - Integrated/Sustainability Reports, Participation in the development of the Voluntary National Review (VNR)