6. Beyond the COVID-19 pandemic

In 2020, COVID-19 spread globally, causing an enormous impact on socioeconomic activities around the world, including Japan. In response to this situation, SMBC Group strove to continue serving as an advocate for and provider of social infrastructure that is essential for maintaining the activities of society. As such, it continued providing financial services and accommodated the urgent financial needs of businesses, while taking adequate measures to prevent the infection of customers and employees.

Specifically, to support businesses with financial difficulties, SMBC voluntarily established two special credit funds in March 2020 for large companies and mid-tier corporate and SME customers. Additionally, in June, the bank rolled out new programs to support mid-tier corporate and SME customers that suffered from the costs incurred by introducing systems for remote working.

To ensure that retail customers could access the financial services that are essential to daily living, SMBC continued to open all branches to provide services for fund withdrawals, payments, loans, and other purposes. Also, group companies provided a broader range of online services to enable customers to perform various procedures and use services from home.

SMBC Group pledged a total of 1.5 billion yen in donations to a number of medical institutions and related organizations as well as charity groups inside and outside of Japan, including the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), in order to contribute to efforts for controlling the COVID-19 pandemic.