The Bank is committed to being a responsible lender and complying with the Nigerian Consumer Protection Council Act Decree No 66 of 1992, which mandates the provision of an appropriate and effective mechanism to protect the pecuniary, health, environmental, safety, and security interests of all legal persons against misleading, fraudulent and harmful business practices including manufacturing, trading, packaging, advertising, distribution, and selling of goods and services to the ultimate consumers. The Bank acknowledges its obligation to be transparent, act with integrity, enhance our customers’ financial knowledge, and support them to make better environmental-friendly business decisions.

The Bank shall proactively embed Sustainability in its business activities by ensuring that environmental, social, and governance risks are always considered within its lending process. This will ensure that the Bank avoids, minimizes, or mitigates and manages environmental and social risks in our business activities via lending. The Bank shall apply sector-specific guidelines that define the minimum standards expected of our clients before engaging with them.

Our objectives as regards ESRM include the following:

• Ensure that financed projects comply with the Bank’s Sustainable Banking Policy and Guidelines.
• Identify both risks and opportunities, with local as well as regional and global perspectives using internationally accepted principles and standards (IFC Performance Standards, Equator Principles, World Bank Group Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Guidelines, Etc.), and ensure that all relevant environmental and social impact are taken into account when making credit decisions.
• Assess the potential environmental and social liabilities of the Bank and its customers. • Ensure that costs related to environmental and social (E&S) protection are estimated along with other expenses and liabilities.
• Assess the commitment and capacity of our clients to manage identified potential E&S impacts. 

The E&S risk assessment of transactions within our purview shall be appropriate to the nature and scale of the facility, and proportional to the level of risks and impacts. The review may be expanded to the related business activities, as deemed necessary by the Bank.

A proposed financial transaction can be rejected due to non-compliance with the Bank’s ESG Risk and Sustainable Banking Policy and Sustainability Guidelines, including E&S action plans and conditions.