Hungary: Karoly Bognar, head of Csr at CIB Bank

As the conference in which innovative ways to enhance local development in Central and Eastern Europe being organised by Euclid? Europe?s network of civil society leaders ? nears, Vita Europe has interviewed some of the third sector leaders who will be speaking at the event to find out more about their fields of expertise. This week we meet with Karoly Bognar, head of media relations and Csr at CIB Bank. Mr Bognar has worked in the past both within the Hungarian financial press and as assistant professor at Budapest?s Corvinus University. It is under his Csr leadership CIB Bank has made a name for itself as one of the banks most committed both to Csr and to sustainable development in Hungary.

What does CIB Bank do to promote sustainable development in Hungary?
CIB Bank, a bank of Intesa Sanpaolo Group, is the second largest financial institution in Hungary, and as such, is bearing the responsibility of being in the front-line of companies promoting sustainable development. We believe that CSR gives us the governance tool to balance our short term objectives (since we are a profit-oriented company) with the long term objectives and values of our stakeholders, from our employees through our customers and owner to the whole society and the environment. We have to be very careful in all aspects of our activities since all we do will affect the well or bad being of the future generations. We think that the best way of promoting sustainable development is showing best practice and creating a wide-spread framework of different initiatives like the Euclid conference in Budapest in April.

Many Hungarian NGOs seem to think that CSR is little more than a nice way of ?brand washing?. How would you explain that you are serious about it?
We know that not just many NGOs but also key business players share this view and act like that. But we strongly disagree with this approach. CIB Bank believes that CSR is not a branding tool, though it can give significant added value for the brand. CIB indeed has chosen a different way: we look at CSR as a management tool, therefore we put emphasis on governance and not PR. CIB Bank established a CSR Unit, issued its first (and first in its industry as well) sustainability report last year, launched new products for NGOs. We are now in the middle of implementing our new Declaration of values and ethical principles in relations with stakeholders, which gives high emphasis to the continuous dialogue with our stakeholders; we establish a new ethical management system; and we will start a pilot stakeholder dialogue this year. Moreover, we do not identify CSR with charity. We are a profit-oriented financial institution with a clear commitment for sustainable development. Charity is only a part of the activity, the focus is on governance.

According to you, what are social financing's new frontiers?
Social financing is still not a clear issue in Hungary. Just as the definition of ILO says, social finance is sustainable finance with a social goal. It is about credit, savings and other products that help the poor to cope better with risk, take advantage of income-generating opportunities, organize and have a voice. CIB Bank is taking its first steps in this field offering specialized account services for NGOs and local government bodies, helping SMEs (small and meduium enterprises) in setting up their business, introducing a new online financial education platform.

One of the hidden, unspoken problems in Hungary is the wide-spread, illegal micro lending, especially in small villages. People getting into a never ending circle of dept, need a well structured net of microfinance institutions. But this issue is not on the table yet.

What do you expect from Euclid?s meeting in Budapest and what do you expect to bring to it?
The focus will be on the multi-stakeholder dialogue. The conference will have a ?case studies approach? and aims at creating a forum for leaders from all over Europe, representing the business and public sectors, as well as civil society organizations, where they can share their experiences and build forward-looking partnerships. The role of financial institutions in the advancement of local communities will be one of the key topics discussed at the conference.

CIB Bank decided to back this initiative and become the main sponsor of the conference because we believe this event is in line with our bank?s vision of corporate responsibility as a way to continuously improve our business through listening and understanding our stakeholders? expectations.

Under such a perspective, the event ? that will have taken advantage from Intesa Sanpaolo?s support in engaging key partners to bring international best practice to the field – will be a good opportunity to learn from regional experiences and join an international civil cooperation network.

More info:

• www.cib.hu