Do banks care about UN Sustainable Development Goals? Wells Fargo's Story

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What is Sustainable Development Goals UN?

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations is a key issue for the world at large and for most companies, striving to aid in the achievement of these goals is a key highlight to how sensitive they are to their corporate social responsibility. In a bid to further understand how some of these companies have been affected by the sudden downhill trend of the global markets due to the Covid-19 pandemic and also the slow but pacy recovery going on around the globe, this blog will be ultimately aimed at weekly commentary on the developments at Wells Fargo in relation to the global SDG’s.
                                                                 

Let's talk about Wells Fargo 

Wells Fargo is an international bank that falls within the caveat of the SDG’s Globally Systematically

Important Banks (G-SIBs) which falls under the Globally Systematic Financial Institutions (G-SIFIs). The past year has been a recovery year for most global brands as the world economy recovers from the aftermath of a global halt in business and trade for close to a whole year in 2020 with varying spaces of lock-down across the globe. Wells Fargo as an institution is ranked 41st on the Fortune’s 2022 largest American corporations list. This introductory piece seeks to highlight the financial activities of Wells Fargo over the past last quarter of last year (2022) in relation to their performance for the year and their forward-thinking mindset for this year which all culminates in how well they are globally positioned to aid in helping achieve the first SDG of Eradicating Poverty across the world and also breakdown the structure of my blog for the coverage of this bank’s activities in relation to the afore-mentioned SDGs.

This platform will be used over the coming weeks to deliberate on the role being played by Wells Fargo in helping achieve this first SDG of poverty eradication within the frame of the next few weeks with weekly posts on key moves being made by the organization to help achieve this aim. we will talk about

  • Wells Fargo corporate social responsibility and its implication on communities which aligns with SDG (sustainable cities and communities)
  • Financial accessibility development plans by Wells fargo which aligns with SDG (decent work and  economic growth)
  • Financial health contributions which aligns with SDG (No poverty)
  • Workplace Diversity which aligns with SDG (Gender Equality and Reduced Inequality)
To kickstart this, here is a contributory breakdown of Wells Fargo commentary on pushing customers to be the best they can with various initiatives by the bank. According to Wells Fargo, they continue to invest in the future with more customer-centric packages such as small dollar product (Flex Loan) which is a laid-back, stress-free process of enabling more SME’s to get access to debt capital to finance their businesses. They again speak of an introduction of two new credit cards coupled with the launch of a new digital banking app which all seek to empower consumers to facilitate transactions regardless of proximity to a physical transacting environment. They again make mention of interest rate revisits to “help build appropriate risk and control infrastructure” per their 2022 fourth quarter financial statement publication. Overall, their revenue decreased by $3.4 billion in the last quarter of 2022. Below are some references I will be using for my blog posts with regard to definitions, explanations and examples citing within the weeks the blog will run. 

Follow my twitter for more update: @RichardBaafi16





References

https://www.wellsfargo.com/

https://sdgs.un.org/goals/

Hák, T., Janoušková, S. and Moldan, B., 2016. Sustainable Development Goals: A need for relevant indicators. Ecological indicators, 60, pp.565-573.

Montiel, I., Cuervo-Cazurra, A., Park, J., Antolín-López, R. and Husted, B.W., 2021. Implementing the United Nations’ sustainable development goals in international business. Journal of International Business Studies, 52(5), pp.999-1030.

Nylund, P.A., Brem, A. and Agarwal, N., 2021. Innovation ecosystems for meeting sustainable development goals: The evolving roles of multinational enterprises. Journal of Cleaner Production, 281, p.125329.

Van Tulder, R., Rodrigues, S.B., Mirza, H. and Sexsmith, K., 2021. The UN’s sustainable development goals: Can multinational enterprises lead the decade of action?. Journal of International Business Policy, 4, pp.1-21.

Van Zanten, J.A. and Van Tulder, R., 2018. Multinational enterprises and the Sustainable Development Goals: An institutional approach to corporate engagement. Journal of International Business Policy, 1, pp.208-233.

van der Waal, J.W., Thijssens, T. and Maas, K., 2021. The innovative contribution of multinational enterprises to the Sustainable Development Goals. Journal of Cleaner Production, 285, p.125319.

Van der Waal, J.W. and Thijssens, T., 2020. Corporate involvement in sustainable development goals: Exploring the territory. Journal of Cleaner Production, 252, p.119625.





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