By Ivana Mitrovic

Since AccessHolding was founded, social responsibility and commitment to the sustainable development of the countries in which we operate have been at the core of our mission and operations. Financial inclusion is our primary goal, and we are constantly developing solutions to improve it. Our next step on this journey is digital financial inclusion, and so we have spent the last few years renewing our service channels and infrastructure. In doing so, we make sure that our products are appropriate and fairly priced for our clients, in order to promote their economic development while protecting them from over-indebtedness. We always treat our customers with respect, keeping their data confidential and providing fair mechanisms for resolving complaints.

AccessHolding is committed to all seventeen of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to six of them in particular, as we believe that access to credit can have a direct positive impact on eradicating poverty (1), creating decent work and economic growth (8) and reducing inequalities (10). The majority of our staff and clients are women (5), and we work with various DFIs (17) to innovate our industry and improve infrastructure (9).

We believe that our people are our greatest strength and potential, and we are constantly committed to providing them with state-of-the-art training through our AccessAcademy and AccessMind e-learning platform. The safety of staff and customers is our top priority and we do everything we can to protect them on our premises.

In our activities as a lender, we are aware of our environmental and social responsibilities. No loans are disbursed or are outstanding if the client’s business is on the exclusion list. Our lending is backed by a rigorous process and an appropriate environmental and social risk management and governance system.

Each year we assess our results and contributions to our commitments. This year we also look back at 2022 and summarise our sustainable and social commitments. For more details, see the full Environmental and Social Governance Report.

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