In today’s world, where gaining the trust of clients is the most important aspect of a company’s business, CSR, or socially responsible operations, represents an important benefit for a financial institution. CSR is a longstanding priority and not merely a good PR opportunity
In addition to establishing, nurturing and reinforcing relations with the community in which a company operates, CSR also provides an additional benefit, because the CSR programmes implemented by a company enable participating employees to strengthen their sense of belonging to their work environment, given that they are participatin up the reputation of the company together with colleagues with whom they share not only work obligations, but also the same values and goals.
Today’s clients are intelligent, but also sceptical, which is why they can quickly grow suspicious, lose trust and turn their back on a brand. Consumer trust is also important for building lasting relationships, reducing the departure of clients and even improving the ability to offer personalised services and solutions that work to fortify those relationships. Through the careful selection of the CSR projects that we invest in and support, Addiko Bank strives to demonstrate to the community in which we operate that we really want to contribute to its healthy development.
Only through longterm support for smaller, primarily local projects can a company demonstrate its commitment to its local community, because that’s how we build bonds that are difficult to break and ensure open communication and direct connections with clients, but also future employees
Although many consider CSR as implying grandiose investments, at Addiko Bank we pay more attention to smaller, local organisations. In terms of the projects that we support, we always take care to ensure that they suit our values. That’s why we focus on those that use their positive example to encourage others to do good deeds, such as the Race for the Cure event and BELhospice’s 8th March bowling tournament, as well as organisations that address a specific problem in society, such as the Drinka Pavlović Home for Children and Youth, the Naša Kuća [Our House] Association and humanitarian organisation Dečje Srce [Child’s Heart] and those that call for social cooperation, such as the environmental cleaning campaign Zavrni rukave [Roll up Your Sleeves] or the project Čep za Hendikep [Bottle Cap for the Disabled], but also those that support the development of entrepreneurship, such as social enterprise Radanska Ruža [Radan Rose] or that demonstrate how focused we are on our clients, such as the campaign Ne pecaj se [Don’t Phish Yourself], which we launched in 2023 to highlight the many dangers lurking on the internet to all Serbian citizens. These are just a few of the CSR activities that we believe in sincerely and want to support because we consider that they genuinely contribute to developing our society – a society that we want to watch our children grow up in as we grow old.
I believe that it is only through long-term support for smaller, primarily local projects that a company can demonstrate its commitment to its local community, because that’s how we build bonds that are difficult to break and ensure open communication and direct connections with clients, but also future employees. This is a form of trust that’s nurtured and worked on in order to be deepened and preserved. And I think that, in the eight years that Addiko Bank has been present in Serbia, we have succeeding in showing and proving that we don’t merely view CSR as an item that we have to tick off a list or a good PR opportunity, but rather that we take it seriously and rank it among our top annual and long-term priorities.