The Chairman of CUB
Ming Jian Kuo
CUB adheres to the concept of social welfare and is committed to providing high-quality financial products and services. By leveraging its core financial functions, CUB fulfills its corporate social responsibility and actively responds to sustainable policies promoted by regulatory authorities, thereby exerting financial influence.
Chairman's Message
With the global political and economic landscape shifting rapidly, sustainable development has become critical for corporations as they advance into the future. In 2024, in alignment with GRI, SASB, IFRS S1 guidelines, Cathay United Bank published its first sustainability report for the year 2023, sharing our diverse efforts across all ESG dimensions. This not only demonstrated our commitment to engaging proactively with all stakeholders but also earned us the Gold award for Asia's Best Sustainability Report (First Time) at the Asia Sustainability Reporting Awards 2024.
As a member of the Coalition of Movers and Shakers on Sustainable Finance, Cathay United Bank has always upheld the principle of creating shared value with society. We have embedded sustainability into our daily operations and strategic planning as we strive to leverage our core financial capabilities to drive positive impact. To such ends, we have inherited the three core themes central to Cathay Financial Holding's (Cathay FHC) sustainability strategy blueprint: "Climate," "Health," and "Empowerment," seeking to entrench and enforce these priorities into all businesses and management across our bank.
Looking back at 2024, in the "Climate" dimension, we continued to cultivate a "low-carbon economy" and promote "environmental sustainability." In September, we launched Asia's first "sustainability-linked payroll services," which offering service fee discounts based on clients' sustainability performance and encourages corporate clients and customers to take sustainability action. We continued to promote sustainability-linked loans and green loans, with outstanding sustainable loan balances reaching NT$74.5 billion by the end of 2024 ‒ a 21% growth from the previous year. During the same time, we reached out to internal and external authorities to collaborate and develop diverse sustainable financial products and services, reinforcing our role as a trusted partner on their transition journeys.
For the "Health" dimension, our mission was to support our customers and all levels of stakeholders achieve "financial health" and "physical and mental health. "To this end, we assembled cross-functional anti-fraud task forces to safeguard the public's assets. Our efforts culminated in us leading the industry in amount of potential fraud intercepted at bank counters and accuracy rate for early credit card scam detections. To promote our employee's physical and mental wellbeing, we also supported the group's "Every Step Counts" charity campaign with our own "Step into Health, Walk into Happiness!" event and other related lectures. These were complemented with robust EAP services to further ensure our employees and their families can enjoy a balanced life.
In the "Empowerment" Dimension, Cathay United Bank focused on "career empowerment" and "social impact." Internally, we organized several training courses and collaborated with external institutions to bolster our employees' professional competencies. In 2024, we organized a Chartered Sustainable Finance Manager (CSFM) training program aimed at raising sustainability awareness and sustainable finance competencies for all employees, with a remarkable 99% pass rate among participants. In addition, we continue to recruit and train interns, bridging students into the financial sector. We also collaborated with the Cathay United Bank Foundation to support 5,854 underprivileged students and sponsor 17 sports teams.
In response to international trends and regulatory requirements, we continued to enhance our sustainability efforts. In 2024, we introduced an internal control system for sustainability information, embedding rigorous sustainability governance across multiple dimensions to ensure the integrity and accuracy of our disclosures. Our work has been recognized by domestic and international institutions: we ranked in the top 25% of banks in a Sustainable Finance Evaluation, won the National Enterprise Environmental Protection Award, the ASRA Gold Award, and the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, among others.
Looking ahead, Cathay United Bank will uphold the spirit championed by Cathay FHC of "Better Together" as we uphold "corporate sustainability" and strive to ensure the interests of shareholders, employees, and various stakeholders. We will continue to leverage our core financial functions to drive impact in the hope of creating shared prosperity and common good with our society.