Chung Sang-hyuk, head of Management Planning Group at Shinhan Bank, declares support for climate finance to achieve carbon neutrality at the “2050 Climate Finance Support Ceremony” held at the Glad Hotel in Yeouido on March 9. (Photo: Shinhan Bank)

Shinhan Bank will participate in coal phase-out finance by not participating in project financing for the construction of coal-fired power plants at home and abroad and not acquiring bonds for the construction of them.

The bank announced on March 12 that it officially declared coal phase-out finance at the Climate Finance Support Declaration Ceremony organized by the Korea Social Responsibility Investment Forum on March 9.

Shinhan Bank has secured competitiveness in coping with risk and climate finance by meeting all three conditions — the declaration of coal phase — out finance, the declaration of becoming a bank that signed an agreement on participating in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) in 2007 and the declaration of support for the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) in 2018.

Shinhan Bank joined the Equator Principles in September 2020 and has been conducting financial transactions in accordance with the principle of environmental and social risk management.

In this regard, Shinhan Bank applies the Equator Principles in reviewing project financing.

The Equator Principles is a risk management framework adopted by financial institutions for determining, assessing and managing environmental and social risk in projects and is primarily intended to provide a minimum standard for due diligence and monitoring to support responsible risk decision-making.

Starting with a subsidiary in Vietnam this year, the bank is planning to introduce a reviewing process based on the Equator Principles to its global network.

Meanwhile, Shinhan Bank will launch the Shinhan ESG Excellent Win-Win Support Loan, which provides preferential interest rates for ESG management companies and their partners.

ESG management is a way of considering not only financial but non-financial factors in decision-making processes for management and investment.

Shinhan ESG Excellent Win-Win Support Loan is a product that provides benefits such as 0.2 percent to 0.3 percent preferential interest rates for companies that reached excellent ESG management levels set by Shinhan Bank in this regard.

On the other hand, Shinhan Bank announced on April 3 that it will become a “management mentor” for small business owners suffering from the spread of the COVID-19 virus in Seoul.

Shinhan Bank will operate Shinhan SOHO Academy with the Seoul Self-Employed People Support Center to strengthen small business owners’ business skills in Seoul.

Shinhan SOHO Academy is a capacity building program for the self-employed that provides more experienced and successful self-employed people’s know-how along with marketing and branding education through tasks and practice. The academy has produced 14 classes and 392 graduates so far.

The program will offer online lectures for eight weeks until May 21 in compliance with the government’s COVID-19 quarantine rules.

The Seoul Self-Employed People Support Center, which provides information about startup foundation and customized consulting for 650,000 small business owners in Seoul, will publicize the program, recommending and recruiting students and Shinhan Bank will provide education and training contents.

“We are helping small business owners in Seoul hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis for a long time,” a Shinhan Bank official said. “We plan to expand this program to cover self-employed people outside Seoul down the road.”

In the meantime, Shinhan Bank will introduce automatic responses to security vulnerabilities for the first time in Korea.

The lender announced on April 8 that it signed a business agreement with SSR, a company specializing in information security consulting, to jointly study automatic measures for security vulnerabilities and upgrade the bank’s security system.

The two companies will carry out joint planning and development to implement automatic action functions in the future and load the functions into “Solid Step,” SSR’s security diagnosis solution.

Shinhan Bank is currently maintaining the security of infrastructure assets through regular inspections of security vulnerabilities and regular monthly inspections and plans to complete the digital transformation of infrastructure security and related law compliance through automatic action functions.

“We will provide safer financial services to customers who use Shinhan Bank through advanced security technology,” a Shinhan Bank official said.