Reputation in financial services.

Insert your favourite joke about our least popular professions – traffic warden, estate agent, lawyer, banker – here.

Except it isn’t a joke, is it?

Financial services companies continue to be reviled by the public and the media. You might be unsympathetic… but like it or not, the financial services sector is a core part of the UK’s economic system. Their reputation matters to us all – and even if you don’t work within the financial sector, their experience in dealing with these issues may hold useful information that you can use in your own sector.

Communicate Magazine are hosting the 3rd annual conference for corporate communicators in the financial sector this week (Wednesday 29 June), to discuss strategies for rebuilding trust. As always, there will be a range of speakers with different perspectives on the topics under discussion: there are over 25 of them (find out more about the programme).

Sessions include discussion of corporate sponsorship, sustainability reports, managing activist risk, crisis management and brand valuation. The keynote speaker will be Stephen Hammond MP, chair of the Parliamentary Group on Wholesale Financial Markets and Services.

And at least one of the sessions will involve audience participation. Do you, like me, dread being called out from the audience for obligatory fun (read: deep embarrassment)? Having acted as scribe for our group at the Social Media in a Corporate Context conference, writing up our thoughts for the Build an App in a Day task, I can tell you that that genuinely was entertaining, and not too strenuous. I’ve no idea what they have in store tomorrow, though!

Interested? Get in touch with Communicate as soon as possible…

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In a new study from comScore, it was reported that mobile banking is on the rise among European consumers. In fact, 8.5% of mobile subscribers in the top five European markets (United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, and Italy) accessed their bank accounts via a mobile phone in March 2011. That’s 20 million mobile users.

It appears that the growth of smartphone use is driving much of the mobile banking growth in Europe. In March 2011, 70% of mobile banking in the European market was done via a smartphone device. In fact, those smartphone users who are banking via their mobile devices have grown by 40% since August 2010. It’s safe to assume this growth is not going to stop anytime soon, particularly since smartphones account for only 35% of the total mobile user population in Europe.

Data security remains a concern for consumers, but clearly, there is a large audience of financial consumers in Europe who are willing to put those concerns aside for the convenience of mobile banking. In addition to accessing bank accounts via mobile devices, consumers also accessed electronic payments and credit cards.  France saw the highest penetration of mobile users who accessed bank accounts during March 2011 of the top 5 European markets as follows:

1. France = 10.3% penetration
2. Spain = 10.2% penetration
3. United Kingdom = 8.6% penetration
4. Italy = 7.5%
5. Germany (the largest smartphone market in Europe) = 6.8% penetration

Another interesting finding in the comScore report tells us that men are two times more likely to use mobile banking than women. Furthermore, the 25-24 year old demographic is most likely to use mobile banking.

What does this data tell financial brand managers? The days of thinking consumers are too afraid of security issues to bank online or via mobile devices is over. It’s time to create the useful and convenient apps and tools that consumers need to make banking on the go easier than ever. Smartphone device and table device targeting should be top priorities for the next year.

What do you think? Is your brand ahead of the curve when it comes to mobile brand marketing or behind? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: stock.xchng

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My eldest son, having reached the dizzying age of 11, really kinda worries me.  He doesn’t want to be top of his class and, I have a sneaking suspicion, he deliberately sabotages various tests to ensure he’s not.

Why? Because he’s afraid of being labelled as a nerd.  It’s OK to be in the top class you understand, and he gets rather upset if there’s any suspicion that he’s not.  But not top of that class; that just makes you a social pariah.

Eh. We’ve all been there in our school and professional days I guess, hiding our true thoughts under the bushel for popularity reasons, pretending we’re not quite the person we really are.

Me? I have no such issues anymore and I’m happy to admit to getting rather nerd-ish about companies, their websites and their Sustainability Reports.  Perhaps it will catch on? Who knows…

This is why two websites have caught my eye within the financial sector of the FTSE 100.  Not because they’re outstanding in any way, but because each has its own little nuances which makes it an intriguing site to have a look at.

See. I told you I was a nerd didn’t I?!

LSE : Perfectly Precise

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) falls into that unique category of a company which is both a de facto monopoly and responsible for regulating itself.  There are, after all, no other stock exchanges in the UK and no other company gets to apply nationally accepted “terms of business” (ie. listing rules) to a broad swathe of UK business.

You could forgive it, therefore, for perhaps not being as focused on its sustainability website as you’d like it to be.  However what the LSE does is far better than many companies.

Its corporate responsibility site is split into four brief statements on Corporate Governance, Employees, Environment and Community, and yes these are pretty brief statements of intent.

However it exceeds many other websites in the FTSE 100 by being precise about its efforts in these four areas.

For example, many other perfunctory websites would have a general statement of how the company works within all local governance and compliance regulations (boring, yet intriguing .. as though a company had a choice in the matter).

LSE’s governance page (it’s excellent just to see governance included in the sustainability agenda) is just as brief, but it includes links to board committee terms of reference and a business principles policy.

More detail would definitely be desirable on the LSE’s website, especially as the group doesn’t appear to produce a separate sustainability report and so the details in the annual report are necessarily brief.

However, as a robust skeleton worth building upon, the LSE’s is one of the best I’ve seen.

3i: Complete Content

3i’s CSR website is a perfect example of how to take a skeleton such as LSE’s and put meaningful flesh upon it without going over the top.

At the very top is a section entitled “How We Invest”.  This takes the bull by the horns and talks about the one thing many companies miss from their sustainability profile: their actual business and the sector within which they operate.

So as well as reproducing various KPIs on the front page the company also talks about how its investment strategies embrace CSR, governance, human rights, the environment and corruption.  There is also a discussion of how ESG fits into the company’s overall company growth and investment realisation programmes.

After this, the 3i CSR website goes on to discuss further aspects of their operations, including adding value, partnership, accountability and transparency.

Crucially, each of these is described from the point of view of both the company as a corporate entity and how it operates within its business sector as an investor.

These descriptions go far deeper into the company’s general roles and activities than I’ve ever seen any other corporate site do.  For example, not only is the Chair of the Corporate Responsibility Committee identified, but also the seven other members of that committee.

However none of this content is either augmented (or marred) by the use of technology or examples.  It is a straightforward HTML website with a few graphs, one video (that I found) and an efficient use of tabs.  And some wonderful, insightful content.

Conclusion

Both websites can be used very usefully as benchmarks for financial companies and businesses in the wider context.

LSE’s website is perfectly formed and focuses precisely upon the areas any company should look to include in their CSR website without muddying the waters with anything extraneous.

3i’s website takes this a step further, drilling deep into the company’s own activities in these areas both as a corporate entity and as an actor in its business sector.

Furthermore, neither are compromised by examples (which can distract from the general message) or technology (which can distract from the quality of the content).  That’s not to to say there isn’t a place for either of these, but as these websites demonstrate they are by no means essential in order to bring precision and content to a CSR website.

^{Picture Credit: Aurora 224 Exploded Mechanical Drawing by auroramixer under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License.}

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It’s always interesting to compare two leading companies in a sector and see how they approach their sustainability websites. 

There is a “standard” website design which has pretty well been settled on these days (3 columns, head and footer, menu system etc) but the question always remains how to use this to the best advantage.

Barclays and Standard Chartered are two of the best performing banks in the UK, yet their approaches to how to design a sustainability website are radically different.  You end up wishing they could have got together and produced one super-duper website, but that’s what competition and market segmentation is all about: being different to your rivals in certain, key areas.

Landing Page Layout

Barclays has eschewed the now traditional 3 column layout but retained a top menu bar for navigating the site and placed the Sustainability section’s menu horizontally below it.  Standard Chartered, on the other hand, have retained the 3 column layout, with the top menu bar allowing site wide navigation while the left column provides navigation of the Sustainability section and the right column navigation of the Sustainability Review.

In terms of content, Standard Chartered kicks off with a video of a cosy chat between the Chairman and Chief Executive recorded in 2010.  It’s actually rather interesting because they talk much more about the business and sector than they do the environment or citizenship.

Barclays, on the other hand, have opted for a grid of squares, each focusing on one of the section’s areas (e.g. Citizenship, Community Investment, etc) and one square is also set aside for “Most popular”.

I’m a growing fan of this way of presenting subsections because it allows a little bit more information to be given up-front, is easier to take in at a glance than a menu, means you can sneak in other links (as Barclays has cleverly done, for example including “Environment” under “Citizenship”) and — most importantly of all — is easily extensible.

Depth of Content

A growing aspect of sustainability websites is how deep and how relevant the content is.  Barclays pages allow you to drill down several layers into ever more focused activities.  There is some data provided, for example a breakdown of customer complaints (nice!) and community investment.  However most KPIs are only available in PDF form.

Standard Chartered is, on the face of it, a little flatter than Barclays in the depth provided but it has two aspects to its website which Barclays does not.

First of all it includes governance and policy within the Sustainability section, meaning there’s a nice long list of policies, terms of reference etc for people to browse through.

Secondly the Sustainability Review is published online (as well as in PDF format) meaning you can get to those all-important KPIs (and other fiddly bits) without having to fire up a PDF reader.

Widgets and Technology

As is fairly common these days, both sites use Flash in one way or another; however neither seem to have been able to grasp it fully. Barclays have a top bar on the Sustainability landing page which revolves between two reports.  It’s neat and slick, but why only two reports?  They have plenty more which could be put in there.

Standard Chartered have a very interesting Flash implementation in their Resource Centre, which gives access to various other aspects not found elsewhere (for example, a Microfinance Event Brochure and information on the bank’s HIV/AIDS work).  However there’s a form of Flash which my browser doesn’t like .. I come across it very rarely but this is it.  Now you can argue that’s my (and my browser’s) problem, and that’s true, but it is also the site’s problem.

Another interesting aspect of the Standard Chartered site is that the online report has various report tools in its right hand column, such as “Add | View Notes”. 

Barclays has some interesting multimedia scattered through its site, especially videos of projects in Africa, presentations, ceremonies etc.  These could do with being pulled together into one basket.  Similarly, I caught a fleeting glimpse of a Facebook group on one page .. that could also do with better promotion.

On the social media note, one of the most interesting things about writing this was that as soon as I mentioned the name Standard Chartered on Twitter (in my “wot I’m doing today” tweet), their Twitter persona immediately started following me.  Doubtless automatic, but an interesting observation nevertheless.

Finally, and totally by accident, I discovered Standard Chartered have their own multimedia Web Theatre, which includes a section on sustainability.

Conclusion

So all in all a very interesting pair of websites.  Barclays has more in depth content and is generally more informative, while Standard Chartered are pushing the boundaries of what to do online (even if a few ideas seem to be wide of the mark).  If they ever managed to produce one site together .. well that would be rather Wow!

Picture Credit: One Pound Coin by Howard Lake under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License.

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Management & Excellence is what I can only describe as an intriguing and unique company.  Their website describes them as:

a research and rating company in the areas of ethics, sustainability, corporate governance, transparency and corporate social responsibility (CSR) specialized in Latin America, Spain and the oil industry worldwide

The company recently released the results of their 2010 “Most Sustainable Latin Bank” survey (PDF).   And the winner is (for the SIXTH year running!) Itaú-Unibanco.

This is no surprise.  Itaú-Unibanco is the largest Brazilian bank and one of the top 500 companies in the world, maintaining a presence not just in Latin American but also the US, Japan, Hong Kong, the UK and the UAE.  It’s no Merrill Lynch, but neither is it a small town squib.

But how can you examine its exceptional sustainability record online?  Only through digging, it would appear.

Show us the goods!

Itaú’s main Portuguese website can be found here.  There is an English portal, but this is the Investor Relations website, not the main website.

Down at the bottom of both portals are links to the Itaú Social Foundation and Cultural Institute websites, both of which fall under the broad base of CSR.

The Cultural Institute website gives the first insight into the rabbit warren of CSR content associated with the bank.  The English language version, linked to from the English IR page, is rather light on content and appears not to have been updated since 2002/3.

This is a shame because the Portuguese version is bang up to date and covers the company’s involvement in all forms of cultural activities from dance, literature and music to political cartoons, courses and exhibitions.

The Social Foundation website, on the other hand, is available only in Portuguese, as are all the other websites discussed in this article.

The Foundation itself is centred around education and the “formulation, implementation and dissemination of methodologies aimed at improving public policies in education”.  Sections of the website address eradicating child labour, a reading and writing “olympics”, the responsible use of money and education management best practices.

Itau Social Foundation Library

However the content is absolutely spot on.  Generally brief narrative descriptions of every area, which include relative figures, before links take you to other external websites for deeper information.

One of the best parts of the site is its library.  Here a whole set of presentations, papers and other publications have been brought together.  This demonstrates a real altruistic intention to disseminate material, rather than control it.

But that’s not all

Going back to the Management & Excellence results I noticed Itaú-Unibanco were praised for their Governance and Sustainability, not their CSR or social endeavours.

It took several attempts to flush these out, but I found them in the end.

The Governance side was staring me in the face from the Investor Relations landing pages.  A subsequent page lists all the initiatives the bank is involved in, such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the Equator Principles, as well as other initiatives the bank has taken such as protecting the rights of small shareholders.

There are links leading off from the page to several policy and code areas.  This is very welcome in terms of transparency, but it would be cleaner if (say) all the policies were listed in one place, etc.

Sustainability, I have to admit, I finally found by accident.  At the top of the main Portuguese home page is a pull down list of site content and, in an inspired moment, I went looking for Sustainability on it.  Lo and behold, there it was!  I’ve since discovered you can also get to it from the front page of the bank’s Portuguese corporate site.

This is one of the most diverse sustainability websites I think I’ve ever come across.  It’s not a rehash of the bank’s Sustainability Report (which is available in good old fashioned PDF) but brings together a whole variety of sustainability related content under one roof.

For example, content tells customers what sustainability products they have, suppliers what sustainability criteria they will be measured against, and shareholders where to follow Itaú-Unibanco on Twitter and YouTube (!).

In a different part of the website, a brief introductory message from the bank’s President rubs shoulders with the fabled list of fully disclosed policies; and in a third section there are videos from Greenpeace Brazil and WWF.

Not all of these sections are particularly expansive, but the point is that Itaú-Unibanco seem to have decided to pull together a wealth of information and make it all available for all stakeholders under one, single roof.  This isn’t seen very often: either the topic or the stakeholder takes priority, but rarely both.

In Short

Itau Sustainability Website

There has definitely been a language barrier when conducting this review: my Portuguese is very shaky and had I realised which site was the corporate site a lot earlier, much hunting around may have been avoided.

However, the site has three strands to its CSR: social, cultural and sustainability.  These are linked to from the footers from all over the site (as far as I can make out) but are only really pulled together on the front page of the corporate site, but nowhere else.

What’s more, the great section on policies in the Sustainability site should at least be referenced by the policies section on the IR site.

So it all seems a little haphazard and messy; confusing, like going around in a rabbit warren you finally get to your destination, but only after several wrong turns.

This could definitely do with being looked at.  As could the orange. I know it’s part of the corporate colours, but pretty please … try and find a different colour to offset it in places!

Picture Credit: Come into the Rabbits Hole by Smoobs under Creative Commons Attribution License, trimmed by Chris Milton.

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