Our good practices in ethical banking are at the core of the confidential banking perception we have created with our stakeholders. Accordingly, in our activities, we act in compliance with the Corporate Governance Principles and in accordance with the Principles of Banking Ethics established by the Banks Association of Turkey to regulate the banks’ all relations with the stakeholders’ ecosystem.
In 2019, we published the Regulation on Ethical Principles and Ethics Commission’s Working Procedures and Principles to establish and develop an ethical culture in our bank, apply ethical principles efficiently, and increase ethical awareness. In 2020, we created our Ethical Principles Policy. We continue to work on public access to these documents accessible to all our employees through our in-house portal. Our Ethics Committee held one meeting in 2021.
We have an e-mail address, “ethics@vakifbank.com.tr,” where our employees and the public can submit their complaints in case of any situation contrary to the Ethical Principles. We carry out the process regarding the notifications made to the e-mail in question confidentially. We do not make any difference in the transactions made regarding the anonymous applications. We evaluate the reports objectively and impartially. As a result of the investigation, we ensure that the necessary measures are taken by including the related parties subject to violations. We take care to carefully evaluate and resolve all notifications submitted as soon as possible. Additionally, we do not approve of any retaliatory action that people who report to our Ethics Hotline will be faced with these reports.
As a consequence of the rapidly expanding use of social media in the digitalizing world, we announced the social media ethical principles to our Bank’s organization in 2021 in order to protect the neutrality of our Bank’s services and the trust in our Bank. In addition, the reports received through the ethics reporting hotline are examined based on their nature and the reporting person is contacted as soon as possible and informed about the process.
In 2022, it is planned to provide more information on the “Principles of Ethical Behavior” in order to increase ethical awareness among the employees of our Bank.
All our employees can access the Banking Ethical Principles on our corporate website and the Bank information system screen on our corporate network. We provide training on our Banking Ethical Principles to our newly hired employees within the scope of orientation training, and we also offer this training to all other employees at request. In 2021, we conducted 273 hours of in-class and 2,229 hours of online training on ethics. In the coming period, we plan to provide more information on the “Principles of Ethical Behavior” in order to increase ethical awareness among the employees of our Bank.
In addition to our employees, our customers can also convey their complaints and notifications on ethical issues through the Contact Us (Sorun Çözelim) and Ethics Hotline section on our Bank’s corporate website, our call center, our internet and mobile applications, our branches, and our Headquarters contact address.
Within the framework of our ethical and transparent banking approach, we require our suppliers and business partners to comply with BRSA regulations and Bank policies, and we expect all agreements we make to abide by our policies.
To see our policy regarding the Ethical Principles: https://www.vakifbank.com.tr/Default.aspx?pageID=2794