Financial accounting is a “useful means of measuring performance,” says DBS CEO Piyush Gupta on June 30.
“As the world increasingly begins to accept that the role of a corporation is to cater to several constituencies, not just shareholders, it becomes imperative to create a better scorecard, one that takes these ‘non-financial externalities’ into account,” he adds in a statement released through DBS.
“Banks have the opportunity of being at the leading edge of creating such report cards, and DBS is therefore delighted to partner with like-minded organizations in trying to set up approaches and standards to take this agenda forward.”
Gupta’s remarks come as DBS announced that it is part of a consortium to launch the Banking for Impact (BFI) initiative to improve transparencies in impact reporting.
The consortium also includes ABN AMRO, Danske, UBS, the Harvard Business School and the Impact Institute.
The initiative is the first of its kind within the global financial sector and it will lead the charge by setting and adopting a set of impact reporting rules.
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BFI has also published a Vision Paper that outlines plans to build an impact measurement and valuation (IMV) approach that includes the quantification, valuation, attribution and aggregation of impacts for the financial sector.
Such scalable standards do not exist at financial firms yet.
According to a June 30 statement, financial firms now need to include factors such as job creation and pollution into standard reporting practices to “provide a well-rounded picture of how they create true value”, says the Banking for Impact consortium.
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As at 4.23pm, shares in DBS are trading 72 cents higher or 2.5% up at $29.90 on June 30.
Photo of Piyush Gupta: DBS
