An interview with Michał Gajewski,
CEO of Santander Bank Polska

It seems to me that it would not be an exaggeration to say that social responsibility at Santander Bank Polska is as important as the core business operations. These are two sides of the same coin. The bank operates thanks to its customers, and we believe that we should repay them for their trust in us by improving the quality of life and the development of the communities in which they live. This is, indeed, the approach of the entire Santander Group that we belong to.

The group’s mission is to help customers succeed on a daily basis. And by this I do not only mean helping companies grow faster and helping individuals manage their personal finances more easily. We want to make everyday life in local communities better and more interesting; we want to inspire and support individual entrepreneurship; we want young people to be able to develop their talents; we want those whose life is far more challenging than ours to be able to more fully take advantage of opportunities.

We plan our activities in the field of corporate social responsibility on the basis of one simple assumption – we want to be wherever we see a need and where we can have a real impact on the lives of our stakeholdersParties which have influence on the organisation or under the organisation’s influenceParties which have influence on the organisation or under the organisation’s influence. We are aware that the sector we operate in, due to the specific nature of the services provided, enjoys the public’s trust. We want to use this trust to stimulate social engagement in important areas, especially those that foster the implementation of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. Worth highlighting is the “Account As I Want It”, a product that has been developed in partnership with and on the basis of the expectations of our customers. Regarding our social activities, we taught safe driving techniques under the “How’s Your Driving?” project; we promoted local businesses in our initiative “Buy from Your Neighbour”; we supported the education of young musicians in the Santander Orchestra Academy; and we added to the foundations of enhancing the environmentally friendly character of our offices. The bank’s social activities are supported through our foundation. And all this is still only a fraction of the activities we initiate, all of them noteworthy, all of them demonstrating our social commitment and sensitivity to global problems.

We live in a globalized world where problems are becoming increasingly universal and go beyond individual cases or the local context. In the business sphere, the digitization of financial services, for example, is a global phenomenon. Moreover, the problems in the social sphere are of an equally global nature. The Global Sustainable Development Goals announced by the UN indicate important challenges that we need to address at the local level.

For years we have been committed to open, partnership-based communication with the community. Among other activities, we regularly organize dialogue sessions and workshops. Thanks to these, we know where support is needed. Furthermore, the management team, which is entirely engaged in corporate social responsibility when planning strategic activities, evaluates these initiatives in terms of the seventeen goals set by the United Nations.

Santander Bank Polska was one of the first institutions in the financial sector to develop and implement a wide package of social and environmental policies and I believe that other institutions in our sector will emulate this approach. There is not only a growing awareness of such a strategy, but also growing expectations towards the banking sector.

In June 2016, we adopted the Sustainability Policy, defining our approach to corporate social responsibility. The document encompasses a number of voluntary, ethical, social and environmental commitments that go beyond legal provisions. It is this document and the UN sustainability goals that constitute the foundations for our management and managers.

No, definitely not. We do organize seminars and workshops for our management team, but we also organize them for lower-level employees. All this ensures we can build long-term value for all our stakeholdersParties which have influence on the organisation or under the organisation’s influenceParties which have influence on the organisation or under the organisation’s influence: employees, customers, business partners, shareholders and the community.

We often tend to forget about one important issue. By definition, banking activity means working towards sustainable development and the improvement of the quality of people’s lives. Without our many services, such as investment loans, the economy could not grow. Banks are also actively involved in the distribution of EU funds. Much is being said about the e-State, for example, but not so much about the fact that it is banks that makes the latter possible. Let’s not forget the banking sector also pays significant taxes. In 2017, our bank was the fifth biggest CIT payer in Poland, third when combined with Santander Consumer Bank.

In our activities, we focus on the implementation of several goals that are the most consistent with our business operations and which we can influence the most as a financial organization.

First of all, we contribute to ensuring equal access to universal and standardized knowledge. Like the entire Santander Group, we attach great importance to supporting higher education, evidenced by the huge Santander Universidades project, providing young people with greater opportunities to undertake ambitious research projects or work in an international environment. Second, we care for our image as an employer, in reference to the third and eighth objectives laid down by the UN, that is, the promotion of sustained, sustainable and inclusive economic growth and decent and productive work for all. Third, we build sustainable and efficient infrastructure, support sustainable industry and develop innovation. Fourth, we strive to plan our actions in ways to counteract climate change and its adverse effects, closely monitoring energy and fuel consumption. The effects of implementing new technologies related to this translate into energy savings.

I will come back to what I said at the beginning. We have more than four million customers. These customers trust us and this trust is our most valuable asset. Without it, banks would have no reason to exist. This trust, however, is not born in a vacuum. It comes from top quality services, innovations that ensure convenient banking, integrity and reliability, as well as from corporate social responsibility.