Corporate Social

Responsibility at Nordea
Building trust every day
 Building trust every day
At Nordea, we are first and
foremost committed to acting
What does ethically in our everyday business.
Corporate Social We want to go much further than
Responsibility mean? that, however, and we see CSR
as an opportunity to use our
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is
skills, expertise, knowledge and
the commitment of a business to consider relationships to make a positive
its impact on society and the environment,
and to operate in a responsible way. difference to individuals, society
It’s not about being perfect, but about
continually striving to become better.
and the environment. Building trust,
CSR can involve a range of activities and being open and approachable,
priorities, depending on the company and acting with integrity are vital
and the sector. People are increasingly
concerned about how businesses to achieving this objective.
function, and it is now generally accepted
that companies have a responsibility to
explain their actions and approaches, We approach CSR as we approach our
not only to their shareholders but also business in general – in a well-planned,
to their other ‘stakeholders’ – people structured, measurable way. We decide
who are affected by the business. which areas to focus on based on input
from all our stakeholders - customers,
colleagues, suppliers and shareholders.

How do we contribute to society?

Helping businesses prosper Building the economy Running a profitable and
Providing loans & expertise Providing loans & expertise sustainable business
for companies to: for large corporations to: Contributing to society by:
•• invest in developing their business •• utilise international •• paying corporate income tax
Ensuring 24/7 access for them to: payment services •• witholding and remitting
•• buy merchandise •• cash management expertise taxes on dividends and
•• pay bills •• make long-term plans interests for customers
•• process cards transactions •• be predictable •• paying dividend to shareholders
•• paying salaries to employees
•• purchasing products and services

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 Making a difference to people’s lives
A bank’s main role in society is to provide financial laundering, fraud and the financing of terrorism.
services to help people and businesses achieve We treat this extremely seriously, and our efforts
their goals and reach their potential. So we lend to prevent financial crime are threefold: managing
money to people to buy a new home or help the risks, having clear policies and instructions in
them save for their future. We facilitate payment place, and raising awareness among our staff.
transactions and make loans to businesses so they
can employ more staff or invest in new equipment. Supporting our local communities
Enabling our customers – and thus the economy We also make a difference through active
– to thrive is our core purpose and contributes involvement in our communities. Our numerous
significantly to a healthy, well-functioning society. community programmes focus mainly on improving
financial education and entrepreneurship, and
Another measure of our social contribution is the our employees get involved by volunteering
taxes we pay, which include corporate income their time and skills. As well as benefiting the
tax, salary taxes (social security contributions) community, these activities help us to better
and bank levies. In fact, the income tax bill understand and relate to our customers.
paid by Nordea is one of the largest among
companies in the Nordic region. We pay our By choosing partners who have the same goal
taxes responsibly – on time and in accordance as us, we can reach a large number of young
with the local regulations wherever we operate. people and focus on topics where our employees
are well equipped to contribute their skills and
We can also make a positive difference to people’s expertise. This way, we can make a real difference.
lives by ensuring that our business activities –
including our lending and investment practices, We help all young people on the programmes
human resources and supply chain activities – to earn and save, be productive members of
place the highest regard on people’s human rights. society and build a successful life for themselves.
In each of these areas, we make every effort to Employees benefit hugely from the experience
ensure that we always act legally and ethically. too. Participants say they return to work
with greater motivation as well as enhanced
Finally, banks have a key role to play in communications skills, all of which improves how
counteracting financial crime such as money they engage with and relate to our customers.

Supporting financial security Supporting people in Supporting our communities

Offering services and products to: managing personal finances Offering our competencies and
•• help make savings & Ensuring mobile 24/7 access to: support to managing one's personal
pension plans •• advisory finances and life skills. Bringing
•• give the possibility to invest •• deposits young people together with bank
in sustainable companies •• payments employees which makes basic
•• offer the insurances needed •• mortgages banking easier to understand.
•• consumer loans
•• investments

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 Long-term relationships
are built on trust
We are committed to engaging with our between the consumer authorities, customers
and employees. In short, we can sum up
customers from four main perspectives: their task by saying: Their job is to listen.
listening to our customers, keeping on
Second, it’s important that we keep on
top of changing customer behaviour top of our customers’ changing needs and
behaviour. Above all, this means responding
and providing responsible investment to their increasing reliance on technology
and lending decisions. This enables us and making our services more accessible,
so that all our customers – whatever their
to deliver great customer experiences. age or preferences – can use our online and
mobile channels for their banking needs.

First, serving our customers is about giving Third, serving our customers is also
them opportunities to tell us what they think about responsible lending and investment
and responding to their feedback. With this in practices. When it comes to lending money
mind, we have a Customer Ombudsman in all to customers, it’s vital that we give sound
the Nordic countries, whose role is to liaise advice and market our products responsibly
to ensure that anyone who takes out a loan
with us can cope with their repayments.
Actions speak louder than words
In 2014, our corporate customers asked us to We also want to help our customers make
develop an app for them, and one customer sound investment decisions. We believe
offered to help. She was delighted when we asked companies that take environmental and
her to help test the product with the development social considerations seriously represent
team, and felt this demonstrated a real willingness better long-term investments. We therefore
to listen to our customers and take action. make sure we invest our customers’ money
in companies that can demonstrate clear

Customer expectations Service channels

24 x 7 Branch network
availability

Persona-
lised service Physical and remote meetings
and advice

Fair and
competitive Contact centre
pricing

Mobile bank
Security
Suitable
products Reliability Netbank

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 Fourth, we ensure that our customers have a
Designing tomorrow’s banking today positive experience in all their dealings with us
Digital banking – people and businesses using and that we meet their requirements and exceed
computers, tablets and mobile phones to manage their expectations. This is our top priority.
their finances – is changing the way we operate.
In practice, this begins with building relationships
To ensure great customer experiences, we know of mutual trust. We want our customers to know
we need to offer our customers easy-to-use, they can rely on us to give sensible advice, keep
practical and secure digital tools for their banking. our promises and meet their needs. To ensure
We also recognise that this is a rapidly evolving that we can support them appropriately, we
area full of exciting potential. We therefore partner take the time to get to know our customers,
with leading creative thinkers and developers their circumstances and goals before we offer
in the field, while also checking in with our any service, advice or product. In short, we
customers that these new ideas meet their needs. make sure they have all the information they
need to make decisions about their finances.

policies and responsible practice in areas To give customers the best advice, we make
such as human rights, working conditions, sure that we understand their needs and that
ethics and environmental issues – while also they understand our products and the risks
focusing on strong financial performance. related to them. We are also obliged by law
to take steps to prevent money laundering
While we screen all our actively managed and fraud. For example, we may need to ask
investments to ensure that the companies customers about the origin of funds deposited
we invest in act responsibly, customers who in their account. We treat any information
wish to go further can also choose one of we gather with the strictest confidence. We
our three Responsible Investment funds, take compliance with these regulations very
which invest only in the most environmentally seriously and undergo regular training so
and socially responsible companies. that we all know what is expected of us.

Our offering Our impact

Household customers
✔✔ Deposits ÚÚ Advice for individuals on their financial plans:
✔✔ Payments •• buying an apartment or house
✔✔ Savings •• savings
•• insurance
✔✔ Advisory
•• pension plans
✔✔ Mortgages
ÚÚ Help in creating financial security
✔✔ Consumer loans
ÚÚ Avoiding financial stress
✔✔ Insurance coverage

Corporate customers
✔✔ Cash management ÚÚ Helping companies with all their financial issues:
✔✔ Foreign exchange & hedging •• efficient cash management
✔✔ Financing •• investments
•• trade finance products
✔✔ Advisory
•• raising equity and capital
✔✔ Fixed income and equity issuance
ÚÚ Helping businesses to expand
✔✔ Corporate finance
ÚÚ Enabling growth
✔✔ Tailor-made products
ÚÚ Enabling job creation

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Being a good employer
Recruiting, developing, motivating and To enable Nordea to perform at its best, we
make sure that our colleagues know what is
retaining the best people is the only expected of them and receive the support they
way to ensure we get things right for need to do their jobs well. A large part of the
development of competencies happens on
our customers. Our three company the job, either through feedback and coaching,
or through problem solving in one's everyday
values – ‘Great customer experiences’, work. As it is important for us to secure a
‘It’s all about people’ and ‘One Nordea continuous flow of talent toward our key
positions and the continuity of our relationships
team’ – are our guiding principles. with customers, we wish to be perceived as an
attractive employer, offering interesting career
Studies show that diverse leadership teams opportunities for managers and employees.
make better and more innovative business
decisions, leading to improved business A healthy environment
performance. Diversity among our employees supports performance
is important to us and gender balance is one We also ensure that we provide a healthy working
of our top priorities. This is a challenge across environment that promotes our employees’
the entire financial services sector. In particular, wellbeing, and that we take the time to listen
there are too few women in leadership to their views. Almost all our employees took
positions. Our objective is to increase the part in our recent employee satisfaction
number of female senior leaders at Nordea. survey, which showed that the overwhelming
majority of colleagues experience strong job
This issue is so important that we launched a satisfaction and are proud to work for Nordea.
Gender Diversity Initiative in 2013. It promotes All teams create action plans to develop
gender balance in a range of ways, including those areas which need to be improved.
supporting managers, highlighting the
importance of the issue in our communications,
and making it easier for women to return
from parental leave. It also sets out minimum
obligations, including a requirement for both
men and women to be among the last three
candidates for all managerial positions.

Leadership matters
Other areas of focus include developing
strong leaders from among our workforce.
How they perform affects how our employees
perform, which in turn affects the quality of the
customer’s experience. We thus invest heavily
in training our leaders and identifying people
who will lead our business in the future.

”
Our objective is to increase the number
of female senior leaders at Nordea, as
we believe that diverse leadership teams
make better business decisions.
Protecting the planet
CSR at Nordea includes a strategy to help them make improvements.
On the other hand, we wish to engage with
commitment to caring for the our suppliers for a positive impact, so we
environment, and reducing also have reasonable expectations based,
for example, on their size and location.
negative – and increasing positive
Investing and lending responsibly
– environmental impacts. This We also have an indirect environmental impact
includes impacts caused by our through our decisions about who to lend
money to and which companies to invest in.
own operations, as well as those So we check that the companies we invest
in are managing their environmental impacts.
that arise from our supply chain We also take environmental factors into
and our core business activities account when we lend money to companies,
in particular by requiring those in certain
of investments and lending. sectors to have a clear strategy for addressing
their contribution to climate change.
A few years ago we set up our Ecological
Footprint Programme to address the
environmental effects of our operations. This
concentrates mainly on energy and air travel –
our biggest impacts – with a secondary focus
on paper, waste, buildings and procurement.
We set ambitious targets for improvement, Striving for continual
and report progress each quarter. Many of our
head office buildings are now certified to the improvement
international environmental standard Leadership
in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).
We have established ambitious
Our new head office in Lindhagen in Stockholm,
where the energy consumption will be at least commitments across all CSR areas.
50% lower than the existing requirements in In this way we believe we will steadily
Sweden, is one of the most environmentally improve not just our financial impact,
friendly office buildings in the Nordic region.
but our social impact too, and make an
Clear requirements for our partners increasingly positive difference to the
Managing the impacts that arise from our lives of individuals and society at large.
supply chain and our investment and lending Because when they succeed, so do we.
activities is equally important. We expect our
suppliers to run their businesses responsibly and
take steps to reduce their own environmental
impacts. We have strict guidelines that our major We would love to hear your views, so
suppliers have to follow, as well as a long-term please contact us at csr@nordea.com.

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Nordea Bank AB (publ)
Corporate registration no. 516406-0120
Smålandsgatan 17
SE-105 71 Stockholm
Tel +46 8 614 78 00
Fax +46 8 10 50 69
www.nordea.com