Posted 3rd March 2023
Recently, O-Bank submitted their Social Impact Program Social Return on Investment Evaluation Report to Social Value UK for Report Assurance checking alignment to the SVI Report Assurance Standard. It was found the report demonstrated a satisfactory understanding of, and consistency with, the Eight Principles of Social Value – as a result it was assured.
“Many disadvantaged people in our society with an urgent need for cash find it difficult to obtain bank loans or to receive such loans on relatively favourable terms, and this ends up causing them even bigger problems. To help people through difficult times, O-Bank launched the Social Impact Program in late 2020. O-Bank is inviting customers to open time deposit accounts under the Social Impact Program, and the funds deposited in these special accounts are used solely for the specific purpose of backing microloans that will be provided with no service charges and at low interest rates to help economically disadvantaged persons deal with financial emergencies. O-Bank intends to take advantage of its banking expertise and tap into the power of its customers to arrange for funds from the exact same sources as before to have an impact unlike that of before.”
We spoke to Yuxian from O-Bank about their experience with the Social Value International report assurance process:
Why did you choose to apply for the assurance process?
We hope to review the outcomes of our Social Impact Program by Social Return on Investment (SROI) methodology and improve our analysis results through the assurance process. By doing so, we could have a more comprehensive understanding of the impact on all stakeholder in Social Impact Program.
Is there anything that you gained or found useful from the accreditation process? And what are the next plans for your organisation?
Through the interaction process and feedbacks with various stakeholders, we can use it as reference for improving our Social Impact Program. For example, depositors told us that we can do more promotion to let more people join Social Impact Deposit and keep reporting the outcomes of this project, so that they can know that the funds they provided are indeed used for economically disadvantaged persons. And also in the process of communicating with the assessor, we can know more clearly how to identify the input and output in Social Impact Program, and more completely include the impact on the stakeholders of Social Impact Program, so that we can get the analysis results more accurate.
“Through the SROI methodology, we are very excited to find that every input of NT$1 has created NT$5.61 in social return, this is a great encouragement for us. The result showed that this project truly helps disadvantaged persons and indeed make the world better.”
Chi Yu Xian
We at Social Value UK would like to wish both Yuxian and O-Bank congratulations for the success of their report and look forward to seeing future work.
If you have any questions for our team regarding report assurance, be sure to visit our assurance section on our website or visit Twitter (@SocialValueUK) for updates on upcoming report assurance drop in sessions.
Posted 3rd March 2023