O-Bank Receives Six 2023 Taiwan Corporate Sustainability Awards

(中央社訊息服務20231205 12:31:05)On 15 November 2023 at the Taiwan Corporate Sustainability Awards ceremony — held by the Taiwan Institute for Sustainable Energy (TAISE) — O-Bank was honored with six major Taiwan Corporate Sustainability Awards, including a "Excellent Sustainability Comprehensive Performance Award" in the Corporate Comprehensive Performance Awards category, a "Gender Equality Leadership Award," a "Social Inclusion Leadership Award," a "Workplace Wellbeing Leadership Award," and a "Creative Communication Leadership Award" in the Corporate ESG Performance Award category, and one Corporate Sustainability Report Silver Award in the Finance and Insurance category. These six major awards shine a spotlight on O-Bank's superior performance in pursuit of corporate sustainability and development of sustainable finance.

TAISE presents its Corporate Sustainability Awards every year. At this year's 16th awards ceremony, leading experts from industry, government, and academia on the judging panel examined the 526 participating companies and selected the ones which had turned in the best sustainability performance. O-Bank, acting in line with its philosophy of fulfilling oneself by benefiting others, using the power of finance to create shared well-being, and using sustainable finance to pursue the goal of carbon reduction, has taken action on six different fronts (employee care, corporate governance, environmental protection, social engagement, customer relations, and green finance) to win a "Excellent Sustainability Comprehensive Performance Award" in the Corporate Comprehensive Performance Awards category.

In the "Corporate ESG Performance Award" category O-Bank has set an industry first by launching its Social Impact Program, by which we encourage consumers to open Social Impact Deposit accounts. We pledge to earmark the Social Impact deposits to fund "Social Impact" loans offered on concessionary terms to economically disadvantaged persons. This program has established a positive cycle of finance and received a Social Return on Investment (SROI) score of 5.61 from Social Value International, which means that every NT$1 invested creates NT$5.61 in social value. On the strength of this program, O-Bank was given the "Social Inclusion Leadership Award." In addition, to build a healthy, safe, and happy workplace, O-Bank arranges employee health examinations and benefits that exceed statutory requirements, and continues to implement a wide variety of health care programs to ensure that employees can maintain long-term physical and emotional health. These efforts have earned O-Bank the "Workplace Wellbeing Leadership Award."

In the area of human rights and equality, O-Bank has built a workplace culture characterized by respect for human rights and value-based identity. In an outward facing sense, we tap into our financial industry expertise to launch a wide variety of inclusive financial products and services that spur the emergence of a society where there is equality, inclusion, and sustainability. As a result, we have won the "Gender Equality Leadership Award" for six years in a row. In addition, O-Bank also advocates in favor of low-carbon, sustainable lifestyles. We are the first bank in the Asia-Pacific region to adopt the Mastercard’s Carbon Calculator, and have launched a "Low-Carbon Lifestyle" Debit Card, which sets cashback reward percentages based on the basis of carbon emissions. Acting via a wide range of innovative communications channels, and by tapping into the strength of consumers and many other entities, together we are cutting the amount of carbon emissions generated in people's daily lives. These efforts have brought O-Bank the "Creative Communication Leadership Award" for five years in a row.

All O-Bank annual sustainability reports are prepared in accordance with important domestic and international sustainability standards, including the Global Reporting Initiative's Sustainability Reporting Standards (GRI Standards), the AA1000 AccountAbility Principles, the SASB Standards (of the US Sustainability Accounting Standards Board), standards issued by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), and the "Taiwan Stock Exchange Corporation Rules Governing the Preparation and Filing of Sustainability Reports by TWSE Listed Companies." O-Bank retained the British Standards Institution (BSI) to certify O-Bank's Sustainability Report as the high level assurance of Type 2 of AA1000AS v3, retained an auditing firm to prepare independent limited assurance reports on specific sustainability performance indicators, and continues to improve the completeness and accuracy of the disclosures in its reports. These efforts have won O-Bank a Corporate Sustainability Report Silver Award in the Finance and Insurance category. Since the first O-Bank Sustainability Report was published, this marks the eighth straight year that O-Bank has received a Sustainability Reporting Award.

O-Bank Chairperson Tina Y. Lo stated: "We at O-Bank continue to improve our sustainability measures, and are actively using our power as a financial institution to create value to share with stakeholders and bring about a win-win-win situation for the economy, the environment, and society. We are honored to once again receive multiple Taiwan Sustainability Awards. In the future, O-Bank will continue to achieve sustainable development while pursuing our vision of prospering with employees, profiting with clients and shareholders, co-existing with the environment, and benefiting with society."