Respect for Human Rights

SMBC Group sets “Human Rights” as one of the priority issues (materiality) and publicly announces to put our effort into prevent, mitigate and remediate the “negative impacts” on human rights. At the same time, SMBC Group will secure trust from society by fulfilling the responsibility for respecting human rights, and furthermore, aim to create positive impact for the society. SMBC Group describes our approach in detail in the Sustainability Report based on UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (hereinafter UNGPs).

For initiatives up to the FY 2023, please refer to the "SMBC Group Human Rights Report."

SMBC Group has established the “Statement on Human Rights” as our premise on respecting human rights.

With a view toward respecting internationally recognized human rights, SMBC Group will continue to engage in dialogue with stakeholders and work to develop and enhance a system of human rights due diligence in order to identify, prevent and mitigate the negative impact of its business activities on human rights.

In cases where SMBC Group caused or contributed to a negative impact on human rights, SMBC Group will endeavor to provide Access to Remedial Measures through appropriate means to mitigate and reverse such impact, and will also work with suppliers and clients to prevent and mitigate the negative impact directly related to its business, products and services.

SMBC Group strives to provide access to remedy in line with international standards such as the “United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights” and the Japanese Government “Guidelines on Respecting Human Rights in Responsible Supply Chains”. We make efforts to engage in dialogue with various stakeholders and take appropriate actions when there are concerns about human rights violations. These measures are equipped with systems to prevent any retaliation or disadvantage to whistleblowers and complainants.

Customers and Employees

Value chain

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation is working to raise all employees' awareness about human rights in an initiative led by the Human Rights Awareness Promotion Committee chaired by the Executive Officer supervising the Human Resources Dept. The Human Rights Awareness Promotion Committee establishes basic policies on ways to promote human rights awareness for the entire bank. Also, it supports efforts by the Office Human Rights Awareness Promotion Committee of each department or branch to promote human rights awareness by designing training plans and helping related activities proceed smoothly. The Secretariat addresses matters needed to operate the committee, monitors the status of operation at each office, and updates measures to promote human rights awareness on an ongoing basis.

The SMBC Group is a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact and the ten principles related to human rights, labor, the environment, and anti-corruption. We are also actively raising internal awareness on human rights, with a range of activities across each Group company, such as human rights training and collecting ideas for a promotional slogan.

As a Group, we participate in the "Industrial Federation for Human Rights, Tokyo" which aims to establish respect for human rights as part of core corporate culture through awareness raising and initiatives. By participating in these activities the SMBC Group will continue to engage with stakeholders to seek to identify salient human rights issues.

Seminars on human rights are held during new recruit training and level-based training, etc. Seminars were held between fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2023 as follows.

This seminar is led by experts in the field and is held once a year for all department and branch managers and HR managers at Group companies.

The Department and Branch Human Rights Training Seminar is held twice a year for discussions on human rights and is led by department and branch managers. Confirmation tests are held periodically over the Intranet to confirm the degree of dissemination of human rights awareness.

Every year SMBC conducts a human rights slogan contest for all employees, including Group companies, as a part of Human Rights Week.

To ensure we maintain a healthy and comfortable work environment, each Group company develops a manual on measure to prevent sexual and power harassment, as well as provides compliance training for all employees.

Additionally, we conduct trainings aimed at raising awareness among managers which includes practical approaches to identifying and preventing harassment using specific case studies, and how to handle harassment reports.

SMBC has a Counseling Dept., a dedicated function that handles various inquiries and consultation requests from employees. Also, SMBC has established a system comprised of an external whistleblowing desk, covered by concerned lawyers, as well as an internal whistleblowing desk with dedicated staff members, for the purpose of ensuring early detection and rectification of any illegal occurrences, actions that violate internal rules, cases of sexual harassment, power harassment, etc. Furthermore, SMBC endeavors to enhance employee engagement level as a united team for the entire bank by conducting a monthly engagement survey, for the ultimate purpose of creating an ideal work environment where every employee can contribute to the Group at full throttle.

In response to the Modern Slavery Act 2015 of the United Kingdom, SMBC has published a "Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement", which provides disclosure concerning our efforts to address the issues of slavery and human trafficking.