More than ever, consumer behaviors are influenced by people’s concerns about the future of the planet, and payments are no exception. A social and environmentally aware public is focusing on how the payments industry operates. Promoting paperless and digital is no longer enough. To be recognised as a truly sustainability-oriented organisation, a company must embrace its customers’ values and priorities. In a 2020 global survey, 92% of respondents ‘expected their bank to actively contribute to preserving the planet’ and 62% ‘would consider switching to an eco-conscious bank’.
Many payment companies are developing business and operational models built on CSR (corporate social responsibility), which addresses a company’s internal culture and philosophy, and/or ESG (environmental, social, and governance), which measures specific goals. What areas might payment companies look at to create their own strategy, and evaluate practices already in place?
With the right company culture, sustainability initiatives are a natural extension of an organisation’s vision for its growth. OpenWay implements its CSR policies using four approaches lately highlighted in Forbes.
Purpose. When every employee understands their contribution to the overall purpose, morale, and motivation increase. For fintechs, this purpose may be to promote financial inclusion, make digital services cost-friendly and more secure, make loans accessible to SMEs, or another positive way their technology impacts the world.
Structure. Streamlined communications and distributed infrastructure help information flow efficiently within the organisation and among partners and shareholders. OpenWay has several distributed hubs across the globe for every key function, united by a fully virtualised yet secure infrastructure and knowledge-sharing practices.
Process. Company processes should foster disruptive innovation and make it easier to launch new sustainability initiatives. Especially organisations that support a country’s payments infrastructure must ensure that their approach includes up-to-date technical and organisational concepts that lead to resilience. This will make them reliable partners within the communities they serve.
People. The success of CSR and ESG initiatives depends on people, a company’s biggest asset. To attract and retain top talent, companies must communicate their values clearly to socially conscious employees. They must also provide staff training, address employee satisfaction, and reward innovative ideas. OpenWay invests heavily in training and team-building events, some together with partner companies. It supports flexible working models and embraces diversity, with a global team representing 30 nationalities. Moreover, although women represent less than 10% of leadership in fintech globally, 30% of OpenWay’s top management roles are held by women.
Many fintechs focus on financial inclusion and social responsibility. OpenWay’s digital payments platform is used to offer both offline and online payments, low-cost digital payments, inclusive wallet ecosystems, and card-based distribution of social aid to financially vulnerable populations. The company has launched initiatives to support education, transition to renewable energy sources, and promote recycling and other activities.
Governance is where companies can demonstrate their awareness of the bigger picture. They can promote a high level of ethics and transparency, shareholder democracy, and diversity in their company structure. OpenWay is one of 120 western brands that have divested from Russia, making an ethical choice and acting in accordance with sanctions. Fintechs play a large role in contributing to digital economic security and resilience around the world, as OpenWay’s recent participation in the G20 summit shows. Lately, governments have introduced on-soil implementation requirements for personal data storage within their country. In managing cloud implementations, OpenWay promotes compliance and resilience by deployment on public clouds, local data center of a public cloud, or a combination of these.
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