Environmental and Social responsibility at Société Générale Consumer Finance /Franfinance

Objectives:
  • pursue its responsible lending and governance policies,
  • canvass new and buoyant renewable energy markets.
Priorities for 2009:
  • implement the 2009 Sustainable Development Action Plan,
  • assessment of its own level of CSR in order to define the strategic axes needed.
Highlights in 2008:
  • increased awareness amongst employees of the importance of CSR (on both a personal and professional level),
  • creation of a dedicated CSR unit within each business line.
Responsible lending in the service of renewable energies
Responsible lending…
FRANFINANCE's entire consumer lending process has been ISO 9001 certified for nearly 10 years now. Attentive to quality and customer satisfaction, it aims to provide responsible lending and to avoid over-indebtedness. A member of the French association of finance companies (ASF), FRANFINANCE signed a charter with various French consumer associations in December 2006 which defines a basic framework for the out-of-court recovery of debts so as not to alienate customers.
Fiditalia, an Italian entity which, alongside FRANFINANCE, is part of the Société Générale Consumer Finance division launched a new product in 2008 called Multipremia. Multipremia is a personal loan which rewards the timely payment of monthly instalments throughout the term of the loan by applying digressive rates per threshold (digressive amortisation). Where a client pays their instalment on time, the interest rate on the loan is gradually reduced.
…in the service of renewable energies
Following the Grenelle Environment Summit, FRANFINANCE has developed a credit offer that is tailored to the highly-evolving market of renewable energies. Benefiting from a government tax credit, the credit offer provides solutions for partner distributors and fitters of solar panels, ground source heat pumps and automatic wood burning appliances. Thanks to its exhaustive training program and prices that are adapted to the end consumer, FRANFINANCE ranks as a major player in this field.
En September 2009, Franfinance launched a « 0% Green Loan ». This consumer credit is free of charge and covers expenses aimed at improving energy efficiency for households. The client need not make any down-payment and can choose his reimbursement period, starting 3 months after the works. Formalities are reduced to strict minimum.
Partnership with Veolia Environnement
Since August 2008, Franfinance has signed a partnership with two subsidiaries of Veolia Environnement :
  • Proxitherme for energy efficient heaters.
  • Proxia for heating pumps
Franfinance has adapted a dedicated contract to accompany the companies’ sales in these areas.
Other projects are underway with Veolia Eau for financing systems of water purification.
Thanks to such partnerships with national and international groups, Franfinance wishes to be an actor in the renewable energy sector by adapting tailor-made financing for equipments.
First awareness campaigns and stricter governance in implementing the Group's CSR policy
FRANFINANCE's different initiatives to encourage collective innovation centred on the theme of sustainable development which represented 20% of the ideas collected in 2008. In October 2008, the entity's management organised workshops to assist its principal managers in defining the broad strategic bases and a concrete plan of action for 2009. In a customer satisfaction survey carried out at the end of 2008, 83% of participants indicated that they would be interested in supporting FRANFINANCE's commitment to sustainable development.
With more than 150 permanent supervision procedures, FRANFINANCE is able to accurately monitor its loans and operating risks.

The electronic statements for the bank's individual customers available from October 2008 were an instant success. At the end of January 2009, 9,818 clients had opted to receive their statements in PDF format compared with 4,900 customers one month earlier.
These initiatives to replace paper documents by electronic formats were launched by the marketing departments and systems analysis teams. Over the course of 2008, Société Générale's HR Department invested heavily in an e-learning training program on compliance intended to ensure compliance with the regulations in force, assess learning needs and develop in-house skills. This training tool reduces the need for business travel. In fact, close to 800 employees across more than 40 sites were able to complete their training in situ. Bolstered by this success, other projects along the same lines are planned for 2009.