The purpose of the Ethics & Compliance function is to ensure that Green Capital's enterprises, executives and employees comply with applicable regulations and codes of ethics; as well as governing regulations in various other industries in which our enterprises operate within, i.e., agriculture, food, construction. Specifically, Compliance makes sure that no Green Capital entity is exposed to compliance risk.
It is worth remembering that compliance risk is defined as the risk of legal, administrative or disciplinary penalties, material financial loss or reputational harm arising from non-compliance with banking and financial laws regulations, professional standards or codes of ethics, or with instructions issued by the executive body. In addition to these duties, Compliance:
- offers an opportunity to convey the positive image of responsible, customer and member-focused enterprises.
- helps to preserve the relationship of trust between Green Capital, its enterprises, and its stakeholders (customers, members, associates, affiliates, partners, investors, regulators, suppliers, and others).
Green Capital Compliance Department defines and implements Green Capital policy on preventing compliance risks such as anti-money laundering risk, terrorism financing risk, embargo violation risk, market abuse risk, conflict of interest risk, data protection risk and the risk of poor advice. All these measures help to reduce reputational risk.
Green Capital has thus opted for an internal system of referenced texts that, in conjunction with various legal and regulatory requirements governing our financial entities, are based upon three pillars:
- the International Ethics Charter;
- the Code of Ethics and Policy established for Green Capital, and each of our individual licensed or regulated entities as reflected on their websites; and
- the Ethics Corpus.
Group Ethics Charter
Established in 2019, the Green Capital has had a nine-point Ethics Charter. The Charter brings into line our current values and growth plan into 2020 and beyond. The new Ethics Charter aims to raise awareness of the rules that should be complied with and foster a culture of compliance. The Charter is the basis of the ethical and professional conduct Green Capital needs to uphold, which is why each Group enterprise will be tasked with implementing the Charter and adapting to its own particular circumstances. It may be accompanied by specific charters on topics such as responsible purchasing and personal data protection.
The components of the Ethics Charter are as follows:
Confirmation of Green Capital's principles;
- Indication of Green Capital's commitments: to be equitable, impartial, universal, multi-channel enterprise that offers cooperative long-term individual support to our customers, members, and stakeholders; and
- Implementation of the principles: behaving ethically in dealings with customers, communities, society and associates.
The Charter is a reference document setting out principles on the actions and behaviour that should be adhered to in our daily business with clients, employees, suppliers, society and all the stakeholders. All the other charters, codes of conduct and internal rules at all Green Capital's enterprises and businesses will be implemented or adjusted on the basis of this document.