Local Savings Banks distribute a significant proportion of their earnings annually to support local vitality and wellbeing.

The 2021 Good Deeds campaign saw Savings Banks and trusts donate almost EUR 800,000 to more than 500 charities. Donations supported, for instance, numerous sports clubs, organisations focusing on the prevention of exclusion, the wellbeing of young people and the elderly, 4H associations, art and culture projects and many animal protection associations.

Allowing our customers to choose the most suitable service channel and ensuring that using our services is easy, safe and flexible are key priorities for us. We want our operations and services to enable a better life for our customers. In 2021, the average response time of our customer service for private customers was just 50.5 seconds.

Our excellent performance in the EPSI Rating customer satisfaction survey was also a significant achievement related to supporting the financial wellbeing of our customers. According to the survey, satisfaction with Savings Banks among both private and corporate customers exceeded the industry average by a clear margin. The Net Promoter Score (NPS) for customer negotiations was also very high: 82 for private customers and 84.8 for corporate customers.

We believe that responsible investing helps achieve good long-term returns. We are committed to taking environmental, social and governance issues into account in our investment activities.

One of the competitive advantages of Savings Banks’ Asset Management is its leading role in impact investment through our Ympäristö special investment fund. The fund’s investments focus on climate change mitigation and environmental innovation

We updated our Responsible Investment Policy in 2021 and developed the integration of responsibility into our investment processes. We acquired new ESG tools, updated the third-party responsibility assessment and prepared an ESG action plan for the coming years. We made preparations for the EU sustainable finance regulation, covering, for example, the disclosure regulation and the obligation to classify sustainable investments according to the EU taxonomy. Towards the end of the year, we also updated the climate scenario analyses and stress tests of our equity and fixed income funds.

In spring 2021, we evaluated the net impact of investment funds with regard to environmental, health-related and social factors, for example. The net impact was positive. This indicates that, on average, our funds have more positive than negative impacts. The main positive net impacts were related to society, such as tax payments, job creation and social infrastructure. We also assessed the extent to which our funds’ investment targets support the UN Sustainable Development Goals that guide global development efforts up to 2030. We also conduct regular analyses of the sustainability scores and ratings of the funds we manage, as well as their carbon footprint, carbon risk and positive environmental impacts.

In 2021, we also increased general awareness of responsible investing in shared meetings of the investment function and the asset management function, at Savings Bank events, and in webinars and blogs, for example.

At the Savings Banks Group, we strongly support entrepreneurship and want to promote the creation and development of an entrepreneurial environment and conditions in Finnish society.

We support the conditions for our corporate customers’ success by monitoring trends and changes in the general operating environment, assessing the impact of identified changes on the operating conditions of companies, and providing information on the changes and concrete solution alternatives to entrepreneurs. We also support our corporate customers in the green transition and the achievement of their sustainability targets.

As part of its social responsibility, the Savings Banks Group applied for and received two new European Investment Fund guarantee programmes in 2021 to strengthen the general prerequisites of its business financing. These guarantee programmes, similarly to the extensive utilisation of Finnvera’s guarantee programmes in corporate financing, and the granting of individual instalment-free periods in order to strengthen liquidity, also served as concrete support for the general operating prerequisites of corporate customers of Savings Banks in 2021.

In 2021, we organised various events, information briefings and webinars for companies and entrepreneurs, and we also launched a financial discussion service for corporate customers to support our range of financing solutions.