I am pleased to confirm that The National Bank (TNB), reaffirms its support to the Ten Principles of the United Nations Global Compact in the areas of Human Rights, Labour, Environment and Anti-Corruption. The National Bank also supports the SDGs and takes actions to help achieve the goals.
In our 7th annual Communication on Progress, we describe our actions to integrate the Global Compact and its principles into our business strategy, culture and daily operations. We are also committed to share this information with our stakeholders using our primary channels of communication.

Yours Sincerely

Talal Nasereddin
Chairman of Board

The National Bank adopts the United Nations Global Compact principles of human rights. TNB respects human rights and makes sure to implement all its related principles in the day-to-day operations. TNB has made it clear that it refuses any kind of human rights abuses. TNB is the only bank in Palestine that sought executing gender audit through UN Women to assess its approaches on equality in the workplace, business and community initiatives.

Human rights principles in The National Bank (TNB) are adopted in several ways in the workplace and business; As a financial institution TNB believes that every Palestinian has the right to hold a bank account, have access to finance and benefit from services that banks provide. Therefore, TNB has focused on reaching out to suburbs and rural areas in Palestine through its expansion plans, 8 out of 28 branches are located in Palestinian villages and rural areas 5 areas of which we are the only bank serving its residents, believing that this could contribute towards financial inclusion.
Women form half of the Palestinian society and are underserved financially in the Palestinian banking sector. TNB was the leader in launching a special savings account that is dedicated to Palestinian women, after a research that was done on several phases, to figure out their exact financial need and provide it to them through this program. TNB found out that Palestinian women need financial security and when they were asked to define it, the answer was a house, steady income, educating their children and through the research it was also apparent that Palestinian women tend to save through buying gold. As a result, TNB has created “Hayati” Savings Program providing all these needs in one program. TNB has also financed a total sum of $3.5 Million as microloans for women, 170 projects were financed and have created an average of 3 to 4 jobs per project.
In 2017, TNB has launched the first comprehensive banking program for Palestinian women that include all the banking services varying from loans, accounts to cards, with preferential rates on interest rates and flexibility in payments. The percentages of gender inclusion kept rising, now females make 32% of TNB’s clients’ base, 64.5% of the savers are females and females who took MSME loans form 22.2% of the clients’ base and 21% of the e-services users are females.
In addition to its financial women empowerment program and in parallel to launching the program, TNB has contributed to empowering Palestinian women through its sustainable CSR program in various sectors such as women health, entrepreneurship, women sports, and women education.
TNB believes in gender equality and actively works on investing in their female employees through encouraging them to seek higher education, training courses and introducing them to the latest technologies reached in the field. Females at TNB form 35% of the employees and hold many vital positions such as managers and head of sections.
In 2018, in partnership with UN Women and through the ILO’s methodology, TNB has conducted the Gender Audit, and has achieved very good results in gender equality through its unique banking products, CSR program and in the workplace. In first Quarter of 2019, TNB and UN Women held a joint press conference to announce the results of the audit publicly and encourage the local organizations to follow the footsteps of TNB and conduct the gender audit as a first step towards gender equality. TNB has published the report on its website and shared it with its stakeholders.
Our staff is also committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity, neutrality and impartiality at work and outside. TNB refuses all kinds of abuses to human rights including discrimination and stereotyping, which has been made clear to all our employees and stakeholders. In 2020, in response to Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown, TNB took the lead in supporting the government during the Covid-19 crisis donating the sum of 2 million Shekels to the Palestinian government's Waqfet Izz Fund for affected workers and families; through this contribution, TNB gave preference to families headed by women and to affected female workers. The Chairman of Board Talal Nasereddin was selected by the Palestinian government to head the Waqfet Izz Fund, which aimed towards mitigating the impact of the crisis economically in Palestine. Mr. Nasereddin and our team, who volunteered for the fund, helped raise a sum of $18 million donations from the private sector to help families who were economically impacted and workers who lost their jobs.

Reports on regular basis, are provided by our Human Resources Department and the Organizational Excellence Department to our senior management team on implementing the UNGS’s human rights principles, if any violation occurs it will be reported instantly, and correction actions are taken directly. TNB is working on implementing the recommendations in the UN Women report regarding gender equality and sets an annual action plan to achieve its goals.

The National Bank adopts the United Nations Global Compact principles of labour, we also work within the regulations of the Palestinian Ministry of Labour, which ensures implementing all regulations including abolition of child labour and the elimination of discrimination.

TNB is an equal organization which believes that democracy, equal opportunities, and diversity will lead to sustainability and growth. We have built an internal system to encourage collective bargaining and ease the communication between employees and the senior management team, the system is an application that facilitates the dialogue between the staff and the management and keeps it vertical and healthy. In addition, through the internal complaints policy, employees can report any error or problem they face directly through this app to a committee that consists of several parties from the management to investigate and act. TNB has also developed a social committee for employees to ensure surrounding them with social activities and encourage keeping strong relationships between them and the senior management team. The committee holds bank retreats on regular basis to ensure high level of face-to-face communication between management and staff. TNB provides health care insurance to all employees and their families. Incentives are granted on an annual base according to evaluations revised and signed by the employees themselves. TNB invests in their own employees by encouraging them to seek higher education, give them training courses and introduce them to the latest technologies reached in the field. in 2020, TNB has invested in the women senior managers by giving them a course with Frankfurt School of Management on Leadership and Effective Communication. Our Human Resource Department has circulated UNGS’s 10 principles to all our employees and were asked to engage them in their day-to-day operations. TNB’s working environment is full of respect, neutrality, and democracy. In the year 2015, The National Bank has signed the Women Empowerment Principles to also advance gender equality in the workplace. Female employees form 35% of TNB’s employees and hold vital positions such as Managers and Head of Sections. Female representation on TNB Board of Directors is one of the highest among Palestinian banks and companies; 3 out of 13 members are females who hold a vast experience in finance and banking. TNB complies with the Palestinian labour law and provides more privileges for the employees than what the law legislates. TNB also complies to the regulator's rule of hiring a minimum percentage of 5% of people with disabilities. In 2020 as a response to Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown, TNB gave its employee caregivers the opportunity to work from home and stay with their children when nurseries and schools closed. TNB is in the process of building a sexual harassment policy and procedures to be implemented in the year 2021.

Our senior management team receives regular reports from the Human Resources Department concerning recruitment, and implementation of the labour principles. TNB complies to the Palestinian labour rules and regulations, If any violation occurs, it is reported immediately and correction actions are taken instantly. Our PR department also provides senior management team with reports evaluating the satisfaction of employees, to guarantee a healthy work environment full of equality, justice and respect.

The National Bank has adopted the United Nations Global Compact principles concerning the Environment. Ever since signing up with the UN Global Compact, environment related issues became one of the major priorities in our strategies. Environment is also one of the main pillars in our CSR policy.

At The National Bank, we consider protecting the environment as a main pillar in our business and CSR strategies. We are proud to be the first bank in Palestine to adopt and implement OPIC’s Social and Environmental policy, and as a result, we have created a monitoring system to track the projects we finance to fully meet international standards in protecting environment, preventing pollution, reducing global warming, protecting agricultural lands and natural resources, and supporting renewable energy sources projects. TNB became the first bank in Palestine to run 85% of its operations using clean solar energy by purchasing and investing in “Noor Jericho” power plant. The bank boasts the largest Agricultural loans portfolio among banks in Palestine and has also developed a renewable energy sources loan program to encourage Palestinians use clean sources of energy with a lower impact on environment.
The National Bank has also contributed towards several initiatives and done several campaigns to raise the awareness on protecting the environment. The National Bank has also raised the value of volunteering within its staff by creating internal voluntary groups to contribute towards the community in line with its CSR program strategies. In the past year, TNB employees have proved their capabilities as individuals in contributing towards sustainable development of the Palestinian society through several environmental initiatives including: Greening and planting lands, helping farmers during harvest seasons, olive picking, cleaning and sweeping streets of neighborhoods and much more.

In addition to adopting UNGC’s principles on environment, The National Bank is also proud to be the first bank in Palestine to adopt and implement OPIC’s Social and Environmental policy. TNB has built a strict monitoring system to track its investments and projects adhering to compliance with law, human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment, labour right, protection of natural habitats, conservation of biological diversity, climate change, pollution prevention and resource efficiency, public health, physical and cultural heritage and the protection of agricultural lands and soil conservation. Reports are sent to senior management on regular basis to guarantee fulfilling the environmental related issues and implementing our friendly environment policy in all our operations.

The National Bank adopts the United Nations Global Compact principles on Anti-corruption. And works under other universal policies such as: Anti Money Laundering, Know Your Customer and Combating Terrorists Financing in addition to best practices of governance. TNB combats corruption in all its forms and refuses all kinds of extortion and bribery in addition to ensuring transparency and bank secrecy acts, which is our core value.

The National Bank always ensures that its operations are all done in compliance with the UNGC’s anti-corruption principles; reports on every client are made, sources of money must be identified, all precautionary procedures are taken in order to guarantee clean sources of money. TNB also maintains the highest levels of transparency and regulatory compliance, in accordance with the highest international and regional standards, implementing international policies such as Anti Money Laundering (AML), Combating Terrorists Financing (CTF), and Know Your Customer (KYC) in addition to the best practices of governance. TNB has implemented the best governance practices by adding 4 new members to its board of directors, 3 of them are independents and one representing the minority shareholders, to ensure that all shareholders can participate in decision making. In September 2018, TNB has amended the article of memorandum to be able to increase the number of independent members to its board complying with the best practices of governance. TNB has also created a specialized department for AML that reports directly to the board and the regulator “PMA”, which works side by side with the Compliance, Risk and the Audit Departments. On the other hand, TNB is in process of hiring an external highly experienced consultant to undertake a Corporate Governance diagnosis and develop a detailed action plan for The National Bank (TNB) and the Palestine Islamic Bank (PIB)- which TNB owns a controlling stake in. TNB also implements the “Whistle Blowing” policy, which allows all employees to report any potential or suspicious financial fraud to a committee to investigate and take correction actions. All policies including the UNGC’s principles on Anti-corruption are circulated to all TNB’s employees and are asked to engage these principles in their day-to-day operations.

Our Compliance, Risk and Audit Departments regularly provide the BOD with reports concerning the bank’s compliance with the UN Global Compact principles about Anti-corruption and other adopted policies, if any violation occurs, it is reported directly to the Board of Directors and correction actions are taken immediately. TNB BOD committees always ensure that the bank complies with the local and international regulations and inspect the bank’s operations through the monitoring departments.
TNB was given Aman’s Integrity Award for its transparency and integrity in 2012.