Effective engagement builds trust, strengthens our legitimacy as a socially-relevant and responsible corporate citizen and supports our efforts to develop and implement effective solutions to Africa’s social, economic and environmental challenges.

Standard Bank’s stakeholders are those individuals, groups, and organisations that materially affect or could be materially affected by our business activities, products, services and performance. They provide us with the resources and capital we need to achieve our strategy and purpose; influence the environment in which we operate; and confer legitimacy on our activities.

The issues on which we engage our stakeholders are multiple and diverse. We are committed to respectfully listening to and constructively engaging with all legitimate stakeholders. Proactive engagement provides us with insights that help to inform the definition of our material issues and shape our business strategy and operations, while enabling us to manage and respond to stakeholder concerns and minimise reputational risk.

The group policy, advocacy and sustainability team, within group risk, is responsible for reporting on material stakeholder engagements to the group social and ethics committee, and for ensuring that material stakeholder concerns and issues are incorporated into Standard Bank’s annual assessment of material issues. It also serves as a subject matter expert on developing good stakeholder engagement practices and managing certain stakeholder engagements on behalf of the group.

We categorise our stakeholders into two primary groups: those with a direct relationship with the group, and those with an indirect relationship. The following table describes some of the ways we engage with these different groups.