Sustainability is integrated into how we do business. It guides everything we do, from the services we provide, to the way we run our bank and support communities.

Standard Chartered will extend its micro finance and financial literacy sustainability initiative to 75 recipients in Mannar and Batticaloa, with a further investment of USD 50,000. In 2012, Standard Chartered envisaged a plan to bring financial literacy and micro financing schemes to the men and women affected by the civil war so that they may once more rebuild their lives and enterprise and function as contributors within the economy, partnering the Government’s Uthuru Wasanthaya program. Approximately 150 recipients in Jaffna have had access to facilities under this initiative with the Bank’s initial investment of USD 10,000.

Standard Chartered’s micro financing and financial literacy programs, which will also be extended to include Anuradhapura, are in furtherance of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) signed with the Youth Business Sri Lanka (YBSL), a project of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC). The micro-financing facilities were made possible for Standard Chartered, which has no presence in the peninsula, via the assistance of Hatton National Bank, which has efficiently disbursed the loans to the recipients on the Bank’s behalf.

At Standard Chartered, sustainability is integrated into the way in which the bank carries out its business. It guides everything – from the services it provides to clients, to the way the bank is run and supports the local communities the bank calls home. Promoting the social and economic wellbeing of communities is a critical component of Standard Chartered’s strategy to support sustainable development in Sri Lanka. Sports and education build skilled and productive communities and improves livelihoods, which are primarily the aims of Go Forward which will be taken a step further with GOAL.

GOAL is the bank’s global programme which uses sport and life skills to transform the lives of adolescent girls. For the first time the program will include boys and Sri Lanka will pilot that aspect of the project. GOAL is a unique multi-stakeholder community program sponsored by Standard Chartered that aims to empower young women (and boys, for the first time, globally, in its program format) for personal and economic development using sport and education as vehicles for change. Using sport and a customised curriculum, the programme addresses disadvantaged youth with the aims of increasing self-confidence and self-value, improving group and community solidarity, enhancing the community and family perception of the value of boys and girls, and enabling pathways for economic development. GOAL covers four core content areas – communication skills, health and hygiene, rights and resources, and financial literacy – that are delivered along with sport training. In Sri Lanka GOAL will use football as the focus sport and coaches from the FFSL and bank staff will deliver the course content.

For the very first time in Sri Lanka football enthusiasts were afforded the LFC experience by way of an international 5-a-side football tournament known as the Standard Chartered Trophy – “The Road to Anfield”, leveraging on its sponsorship of Liverpool Football Club. Teams played in a qualification tournament in each participating market with the regional winners travelling to Anfield to play on the hallowed turf! Road to Anfield, now in its fourth season, saw the participation of a total of 19 markets from across Standard Chartered’s footprint participating in the regional qualifying tournaments: Botswana, Brunei, Ghana, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Gambia, Thailand, Uganda, Vietnam, Zambia & Zimbabwe. A total of 10 winning teams represented their country at the Standard Chartered Trophy Finals, played at Liverpool FC’s home ground, Anfield on 8th May 2015. South Korea emerged the winners in this year’s tournament.

This is the very first time Sri Lankan football enthusiasts are afforded the LFC experience by way of Standard Chartered Trophy – “The Road to Anfield”. The experience leverages on the bank’s sponsorship of Liverpool Football Club to afford an indelible and memorable experience to soccer enthusiasts and clients within its global footprint.

Standard Chartered in celebration of World Environment Day 2014 and in keeping with the international theme “Raise your voice, not the sea level” invited Professor Devaka Weerakoon of Colombo University’s Zoology Department to address staff and invitees from the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce. His interactive and thought provoking session focusing on exploring the significance of climate change for Sri Lanka as a small island developing state, particularly highlighted the concerns around rising sea levels and the global impact, especially on island nations such as ours.

More than a 100 volunteers from the bank periodically visit the beaches at Kosgoda to plant a further pandanus. The pandanus are planted at Kosgoda near sea turtle nesting areas to help with the conservation of Sri Lanka’s marine turtle population, as well as to replenish the green cover in the area. Loss of the vegetation in the area has led to the turtle hatchlings emerging from the nest at night being disorientated by the street lights, leading them to crawl towards the brightest, lowest horizon which under natural conditions is the reflection of the moon and stars on the sea, but instead is the highway or inland.

Standard Chartered welcomes its clients to “raise their voice” for the environment by requesting a conversion to an eStatement. Clients may call the Bank on 2480480 and make a request to have paper statements converted to electronic statements