Publication of CSR Strategy

Spring 2019 saw the launch of our CSR Strategy, which includes objectives for two key social themes: sustainability and an inclusive financial and economic system. We asked our internal and external stakeholders which of our core tasks can have the greatest impact on these themes in 2020.

For the theme of sustainability, they see opportunities mainly through supervision, research and advice, financial stability, and reserve management. For an inclusive financial and economic system, they expect we can exert the most influence through supervision, financial stability, payments and research and advice.

Sustainability-related activities in 2020

The stakeholders' opinions are in good alignment with our ambitions on both themes and how we see society evolving. This year we will explore how to integrate climate risk management into market access requirements and fit and proper assessments, and to what extent behaviour and culture at financial institutions affect sustainable finance decisions. We will broaden our approach to climate risks to other sustainability risks, such as the risk of biodiversity loss. We will also continue to embed climate risks in our supervision of banks, insurers and pension funds.

At European level, we will work together with the European Central Bank (ECB) to map financial market infrastructure carbon emissions and explore the possibilities for reducing them. We will proactively contribute to discussions on the role of climate considerations in the evaluation and review of the ECB’s monetary policy strategy. Together with the IMF we will prepare a statistical paper on expressing sustainable finance in quantifiable terms, which will form the basis for the further development of internationally comparable official statistics on sustainability in the financial sector. We will further explore the role of sustainable financial products in the transition to a climate-neutral economy. Meanwhile, we will further integrate sustainability aspects into our own reserve management.

Inclusiveness-related activities in 2020

We will continue to promote an inclusive economic and financial system, in which financial services are readily accessible and the continuity of critical financial functions is safeguarded. We will carry out in-depth analyses of the labour and housing markets and the lending and payment systems in 2020. In doing so, we will explicitly consider whether these markets are sufficiently accessible. The results of these analyses will form the basis for policy recommendations.

As part of our advisory role, we are involved in the further elaboration of the Pension Accord to ensure the future sustainability of our pension system.

Through the National Forum on the Payment System (NFPS), chaired by DNB, we will examine the accessibility of the retail payment system for consumers and SMEs in order to identify vulnerable groups and bottlenecks in payments.

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This is the first update of our CSR Strategy. From now on we will provide an update every year, and in our annual report we will set out how we have implemented the activities planned for the year under review.