
Among the topics significant for stakeholders and prospects of Komerční banka, the following five topics ranked as the most material:
1) Data security - The category addresses management of risks related to collection, retention, and use of sensitive, confidential, and/or proprietary customer or user data. It includes social issues that may arise from incidents such as data breaches in which personally identifiable information (PII) and other user or customer data may be exposed. It addresses a company’s strategy, policies, and practices related to IT infrastructure, staff training, record keeping, cooperation with law enforcement, and other mechanisms used to ensure security of customer or user data.
2) Digitalisation – The recent wave of innovation in the financial services industry based on digitalisation is bringing a broad range of challenges and opportunities characterised by (a) evolving customer needs – with emphasis on reliability, trust, and partnership with clients; a need for simple and fast but personalised solutions accessible anywhere and anytime; (b) changing competitive landscape – with considerable pressure on profit margins, disruption caused by fintech and neobanks, scale as a requisite for efficiency; and (c) technological revolution – transforming legacy banking systems, changing client expectations, new development practices and ways of working and analysing data, big leaps in productivity, strengthening the role of technology providers across industries;
3) Energy management - The category addresses environmental impacts associated with energy consumption. For a financial company, it comprises risks and opportunities related to the process of energy transition for its clients and the economy as a whole. This structural change of the energy system has a potential to determine long-term prosperity, resilience and sustainability of the whole economies or even regional blocks, such as the European Union. It involves building a capacity to evaluate and finance diverse projects and organisations influenced by the changes regarding energy supply and consumption. Furthermore, it addresses the company’s management of energy efficiency and intensity, energy mix, as well as grid reliance.
4) Business model resilience - The category addresses an industry’s capacity to manage risks and opportunities associated with incorporating social, environmental, and political transitions into long-term business model planning. This includes responsiveness to the transition to a low-carbon and climate-constrained economy, as well as growth and creation of new markets among unserved and underserved socio-economic populations. The category highlights industries in which evolving environmental and social realities may challenge companies to fundamentally adapt or may put their business models at risk. In financial services industry, the landscape in Europe is changing, partly due to disruptive digital innovation and the threat of competition from both banks and non-banks. Banks must therefore establish their path to sustainable and viable business model to remain in the market, and the winners must ensure their model can sustain an increased volume of business. Next to substantial market pressure, banks must also prepare for intensifying supervisory dialogues on topics such as profitability, automation and digitalisation, risk management frameworks and controlled transition following banks’ consolidation.
5) Management of the legal and regulatory environment - The category addresses a company’s approach to engaging with regulators in cases where conflicting corporate and public interests may have the potential for long-term adverse direct or indirect environmental and social impacts. The category addresses a company’s level of reliance upon regulatory policy or monetary incentives (such as subsidies and taxes), actions to influence industry policy (such as through lobbying), overall reliance on a favourable regulatory environment for business competitiveness, and ability to comply with relevant regulations. It may relate to the alignment of management and investor views of regulatory engagement and compliance at large. Financial institutions must also stay ready for intense supervisory and policy dialogues on topics such as profitability, equipment with capital, automation, digitalisation, and risk management frameworks, even as banks have been increasingly mandated with ensuring certain public responsibilities, including in the areas of preventing financial crime, consumer protection, and financial stability.