Company Profile
FirstRand Limited (FirstRand or the group), which is listed on the Johannesburg
Stock Exchange (JSE), provides a comprehensive range of retail, commercial,
insurance, asset management, corporate and investment banking services in
South Africa and offers niche products in certain international markets.
The group has four major divisions which are separately branded, First National
Bank (FNB), Rand Merchant Bank (RMB), Ashburton Investment Management
and WesBank. The group recently purchased Aldermore (UK) and will be
consolidating its business in the UK under the banner of Aldermore. The group’s strategic framework accommodates a broad set of growth opportunities across the financial services universe from a product, market, segment, and geographic perspective.
Sustainability Agenda
FirstRand has a dedicated environmental and social risk management team,
which manage direct and indirect environmental (inclusive of climate change)
and social risk in the group. The team forms part of the Enterprise Risk Management
business unit in the FirstRand Corporate Centre. In recent times, the deployment of financial resources and the implications for the natural environment and broader society has come into sharp focus. All economic activities leave social and ecological footprints, and it is important to understand these to ensure the longer-term sustainability of the society we are trying to build tomorrow through the investments we are making today.
FirstRand has invested significant time and resources to properly understand the social
and environmental footprints of the activities it finances. It now has formal and
enterprise-wide governance oversight of lending and investment activities with any
material social and environmental impact underpinned by reliable and robust
measurement and performance management frameworks to monitor environmental
and social risks continuously. The group is optimizing its portfolio by using the
opportunities that environmental, climate change and social risks present in the
development of tailor made financial solutions for their clients.
FirstRand Environmental and Social Risk reports on the website: https://www.firstrand.co.za/media/society/equator/FirstRand-environmental-and-social-risk-report-2017.pdf
First Rand Climate Change and Energy Report: https://www.firstrand.co.za/media/society/equator/2016-FirstRand-climate-change-and-energy-report.pdf