Japan Post Bank

On gender equality, Japan Post Bank publicly commits to gender equality and women’s empowerment and discloses a target to achieve a 20% or higher ratio of women in managerial positions under its medium-term management plan. The bank identified and prioritised its impacts through a materiality assessment process which included feedback from external stakeholders and evaluations by external research agencies.

Japan Post Bank discloses absolute financed emissions of its finance portfolio.

Japan Post Bank has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights, the ILO core labour rights, and to prohibit policy prohibiting bribery and corruption. Furthermore, the bank discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category. To conclude, Japan Post Bank discloses income tax payments for all its tax jurisdictions.

While the sustainability committee promotes and discusses sustainability, there is no evidence that Japan Post Bank assigns responsibility for sustainability to the group’s highest governing body. In addition, it has an opportunity to link the remuneration of its executive or management teams to sustainability performance criteria. In terms of female representation in leadership positions, women are underrepresented on the board of directors where only three out of twelve board members are women. Japan Post Bank can improve its performance on gender equality also by reaching at least 40% female representation in senior leadership positions and by disclosing the actions taken to address any pay gaps. To conclude, it could describe its engagement approach to sustainability and impact topics with clients.

Japan Post Bank discloses a net-zero target, but only for its finance portfolio and not for all its financing activities. Furthermore, it has an opportunity to disclose the key sectors and companies it has identified as priorities to engage with on climate change, specifically on the alignment with the Paris Agreement. Although the bank publishes the amount devoted to environmental, social and governance (ESG) themed investments and related targets, it can enhance its performance by specifying what amount and related targets are devoted to climate solutions. On biodiversity, no evidence was found that the financial institution is committed to minimising its negative impacts or financing regenerative solutions.

Japan Post Bank has the opportunity to describe the process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts through its relevant financing activities and to establish a grievance mechanism accessible to all stakeholders to raise human rights complaints. Although the bank discloses the ages of its total employees, it has an opportunity to disclose this information for each employee category. To provide transparency on financial inclusivity, Japan Post Bank could disclose the amount of finance directed towards women-owned businesses, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), or low-income developing countries.