Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability Challenges for a Bancassurance Company

This contribution originates from the ideas and discussions during the third edition of the Montepaschi Vita Forum on “The Paradigms of Value. Towards a Good Governance in Financial and Insurance Services: the challenge of ethics, transparency and trust”, which took place in Rome, 15 October 2004 and was organized by the MPS insurance pole in partnership with The Geneva Association and Ania. The Forum series are prompted by the awareness of the critical role and nature of the “paradigms of value” topic in the present competitive context of financial services. Value-creation mechanisms are key elements of financial and insurance services, both in the interests of shareholders and, in broader terms, of all stakeholders. The theme of the third Montepaschi Vita Forum was encouraged by the current uncertainty of the financial scenario, in which the rule-based system and the reliability and accountability of several interlocutors is being questioned. The basic assumption is that good corporate governance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are gradually advancing from a “philanthropic” variant of corporate capitalism to strategic approaches for regaining the trust of clients and society in general. Their role as risk (and also social) managers means that insurers have to work out different models and mechanisms for good corporate governance and CSR in view of a new state of play among the various stakeholders involved. The narrow borderline between legally binding requirements and self-regulatory initiatives has to be borne in mind when addressing topics such as good governance and CSR. A cultural change is involved, transforming a “regulatory compliance” approach into a “regulatory plus” approach. This article focuses on the challenges that MPV, as an insurance company belonging to a banking group with a well-defined CSR strategy, faces in identifying and implementing coherent CSR initiatives and measures. The Geneva Papers (2005) 30, 485–497. doi:10.1057/palgrave.gpp.2510040