HSBC's community outreach
By Karishma Singh

Dato Paduka Awg Hj Md Yusof, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Home Affairs and Marcus Hurry, CEO of HSBC at last Sunday's HSBC Community Project 2003 in Muara Beach

HSBC has garnered the worldwide reputation of being a trustworthy international banking group. Despite the financial company's excellent record, in recent months, HSBC has also realised the importance of paying more attention to the non-financial implications of lending decisions, in an effort to acquire a more responsible social conscience. Sir John Bond, the Group Chairman of HSBC, in the 2002 HSBC holdings Annual Review, has explained in greater detail the various schemes and projects that HSBC has set up and supported in its new "HSBC in Community" initiatives.

"Education and the environment remain our principal areas of community support", Sir Bond articulated in his review. He lists the countries in which HSBC has extended these new operations to as being Australia, the UK, Brazil, Canada, France, the Hong Kong SAR, India, Malaysia, Singapore, the USA, and recently Brunei Darussalam as well, with the cleaning up of the Muara Beach Recreation Area.

The work in education falls mainly under five themes. Firstly, talented individuals are provided with HSBC scholarships, with the students coming mostly from Hong Kong, the UK and South Africa. Many HSBC employees help to carry out volunteer work in local communities. HSBC also undertakes projects where many resources are channelled into one school or institution. In this way, language colleges and mentoring of students are funded.

Educational and attitudinal projects which give children formative and life-changing experiences like the Kielder Challenge, a series of outdoor events in the UK for teams of able-bodied and disabled children, was sponsored by HSBC. Finally, HSBC helps children and young adults to become more independent in schemes tailored to local needs, like Junior Achievement in the USA, which allows high school students to gain experience of running small businesses.

To raise awareness of HSBC's educational work, the corporation has also decided to develop the HSBC Global Education Challenge, an award-winning website designed solely for children, as an exciting educational resource open for anyone to use. So far, schools in 35 countries have used the site.

HSBC's commitment to the environment remains as strong as ever. Sir John Bond reveals that the bank has maintained its support of Investing Nature, working with Earthwatch, WWF and Botanic Gardens Conservation International. As a direct result of this assistance, in 2002 BGCI listed and conserved 8,000 threatened plant species and WWF have selected freshwater demonstration sites in Brazil, China and the UK.

On Sunday, the HSBC in Brunei Darussalam kept a date with the community when it launched its Community Project 2003 at the Muara beach, cleaning up the recreation area there and releasing 50 turtles in a bid to uphold the Turtle Conservation and Awareness Day.

It is surely reassuring to know that at least one bank has not only our financial needs in their capable hands, but also cares for our community and the environment that belongs to us all. In Brunei, HSBC has long been associated with a number of environmental projects, notably the preservation of Merimbun Heritage Park, the renovation of Tasek Lama Recreation Park and the planting of trees at His Majesty's Silver Jubilee Park at Jln Pasar Ulak.

Meanwhile, 'The Star' in a report yesterday stated that HSBC is also strategically positioning its unit HSBC Bank Malaysia Bhd to be its Islamic financial business hub for the Southeast Asian region.

"We believe Malaysia can offer the best opportunity for us to actively promote our Islamic financing business, which in turn will become part of the group's core business operation," HSBC Bank Malaysia deputy chairman and chief executive officer Zarir J Cama said.

He continued that the group's future success would be encouraged by the seriousness of the government, particularly Bank Negara, in giving Islamic financing a cohesive, friendly and pragmatic framework, as well as bringing risk management to the right level of transparency.

HSBC, incidentally, was the first to launch an Islamic charge card in Malaysia and has continued to invest in the development of a comprehensive range of Islamic financial services. With the establishment of HSBC Amanah Finance in 1998, which is the HSBC group's global Islamic financial services division, all HSBC's international network and experience in community banking have been leveraged to develop value-added Islamic products that can be distributed on a global basis.

story Department.

Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin