BisB Achieves Second Place for the Kingdom’s Banking Sector

Bahrain Islamic (BisB) has recently been ranked second in the Kingdom’s banking sector in the Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) ranking list by ESG Invest - Sustainability Excellence, with a commendable Percentile Ranking of 84. As a signatory of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), Sustainability Excellence's investment research arm, ESG Invest, evaluates and scores the ESG performance of more than 700 companies across the Middle East spanning nine regional markets. 

The Bank achieved its score based on its performance on key ESG issues, namely the Integration of environmental and social factors in lending activities, responsible relationships with customers, data privacy & security, employee training &development, as well as the prevention of money laundering. Each of these key criteria were scored based on qualitive Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and quantitative research carried out by the ESG Invest team.

While the Bank received high scores across multiple criteria, one of the highest scores the Bank received was in the Data Privacy and Security KPI, where BisB achieved the highest possible score in light of its formal commitment to ensure customer data privacy and security in its Security and Privacy Statement, the Bank’s Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) where its certified for data security and ISO 27001 data privacy and security management system and also certified against ISO 22301:2019 Business Continuity Management System. Furthermore, alongside a myriad of measures BisB deployed in terms of raising awareness, the Bank launched technological innovations with 9 enhanced services launched to retail clients and corporate clients, such as introducing Virtual Cards; which eliminated the need for physical cards with the same benefits as traditional card, providing the ultimate level of security. Moreover, the Bank was recognized in the aforementioned criteria for introducing its end-to-end digital service, which allows both individual establishments and Sijili customers to open a corporate account using state of the art facial recognition technology, via the Bank’s corporate mobile application, BisB Corporate Digital. 

Promotion of the Social and Economic Development was another top-scoring criterion, where the Bank was recognized for its continual aim to support the local economy by supporting critical sectors of the economy including national infrastructure, healthcare, information technology, telecommunication services, and the Small Medium Enterprise (SME) sector, to name a few. The Bank was also commended for deploying significant measures to address social and economic development and achieved additional scores through the Bank’s highly proactive Commercial Banking division that is responsible for the financing of SME. 

With its formal commitment to preventing money laundering and terrorism financing in its

Anti-Money Laundering Statement, BisB also achieved top marks in its ESG ratings for its ongoing commitment to adhering to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and its active measures deployed to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing, clearly implemented whistleblowing procedures which is communicated to all the Bank’s employees, alongside its consistent due diligence and Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures and established disciplinary measures to address any breaches. In addition, the Bank was recognized for conducting comprehensive training programs for its employees on anti-money laundering and achieved high scores in its ESG Employee Training and Development section. In this regard, the BisB cemented a proven track record of success, developing a wide set of policies and processes that ensure its employees are equipped with the necessary tools to develop their skills and through in-house development programs and internal training procedures, professional development plans for all employees, through mandatory learning and development objectives and personal development plans, and in particular, the Bank’s e-learning portal 'BisB Academy', which comprises 600 online tutorials in various subjects that are accessible is available to all employees. 

Commenting on the recognition, the Chief Executive Officer of BisB, Hassan Jarrar, revealed, “We’re incredibly proud to be ranked second across the Kingdom of Bahrain in the banking sector for our ongoing efforts in adhering to world-class best practices by integrating ESG into our organization. With the rising attention to adopting ESG regionally, we made a strategic decision last year to form a three-year sustainability roadmap at an executive level, which resonates strongly with our ongoing commitment to driving digitisation in the financial industry, by launching innovative banking solutions to make traditional banking less complicated and more intuitive.”

“This milestone achievement is a testament to our successful formulation of a sustainability roadmap and comes in line with our aim to effectively position BisB as a vital purpose and impact-driven player by 2023, all while benefitting from recognized ESG leadership and strengthening the Bank’s dominant market position as the lender of choice in high sustainability impact sectors. At the end of the day, the key to any organization’s development in this day and age is its ability to embrace a more sustainable method of conducting its activities using an innovative mindset, ensuring business resilience for years to come,” the CEO of BisB added.

The Bank plans to continue to raise awareness on sustainability practices and update the necessary internal policies accordingly and determine initial areas of opportunity to further strengthen ESG-led actions, in the likes of exploring eco-friendly solutions and policies to reduce the carbon footprint of the Banks operations, as well as forming a policy to highlight the Bank’s commitment to promoting employee diversity and emerging as an equal opportunity employer.