Community Access

Product Name	Community Access
Issuer	Bank Australia
Category	Banking
Type	Deposit/Savings account
Target	Retail
Certified Since	2016

Asset Classes	Cash
Markets	Australia
Investment Approaches	Negative Screening, Positive Screening
It Includes:	Renewable energy and energy efficiency Social and sustainable infrastructure
It has some level of screening for:
It fully excludes:	Animal cruelty Armaments Fossil fuels Gambling Tobacco
Broker	Responsible Returns
URL	https://www.responsiblereturns.com.au/investment-options/community-access/profile

Overview

Bank Australia's deposit products are socially and environmentally responsible and still competitive relative to the major banks. For example, prospective lending customers are assessed by the bank to ensure they are able to assume their debt obligations without suffering financial hardship, the bank invests 4% of its after tax profits in projects with a positive social and environmental impact, the bank mitigates the social and environmental impacts of its operations and screens potential loans and investments for negative social and environmental effects, for example, excluding loans to the fossil fuel industry.

Description

By depositing funds with Bank Australia, customers are:

Contributing to a pool of funds which is primarily sourced from other depositors in Bank Australia (an important part of the bank’s stable, customer-owned business model).
Entrusting their deposit to a bank which is run in a responsible manner, for example, by:
- Striving to ensure their money is lent (invested) in a socially and environmentally responsible way, by for example, not making any loans to the fossil fuel industry;
- Returning profits to its customer/owners through competitive fees and interest rates;
- Ensuring that its products are socially impactful and still competitive relative to the major banks;
- Allocating 4% of its profits to the Bank Australia Impact Fund, including in the Bank Australia Conservation Reserve;
- Mitigating the environmental and social impacts of its operations; and
- Creating and keeping jobs in Australia.

Performance results

Product documentation

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The products featured on this site have all achieved certification under the Responsible Investment Association Australasia’s (RIAA) Responsible Investment Certification Program.

Transparency & Verification

What sets these investment products aside from regular ones on the market is they all have some type of responsible or ethical strategy applied to them.

At a minimum, their issuers explain these strategies in public documents and open their offices and books to third party verifiers who check these strategies are implemented according to what you read about them publicly.

You can also click through to see the underlying managers and / or stock holdings in each certified product as well as access a certified product’s recent performance results.

Stewardship & Impact

In July 2019, we lifted our requirements of certified products which we are phasing in over 18 months.

We now require that issuers have organisation-wide commitments to responsible investing and they exercise their responsibilities as stewards of your money - through engaging with companies to improve sustainability performance and voting on shareholder resolutions where possible. All certified products now need to at least avoid significant harm and their issuers will annually report against any sustainability-based claims made by their products. This uplift in program standards is part of our passion for, and on-going commitment to, responsible and ethical investing.

Even though we're lifting the bar, we know your convictions to doing good with your money may be higher and so we have served up our member's certified products with a large dose of transparency and independent verification, so that you can draw your own conclusions from reliable information and choose investments that best suit your individual needs.

*Information Disclosures

While all reasonable efforts are undertaken to ensure information and links on site are current there may be instances where information and documents are updated during the course certification (eg. PDS, Fact Sheet). Certified product issuers are required to update this information as soon as possible on the Responsible Returns site, but there may be some extenuating circumstances impacting timeframes.

The certification program may also assess information provided for certification based on proposed future changes to a responsible investment process that is in-line with Responsible Investment Association Australasia’s (RIAA) Responsible Investment Certification Program criteria. In such instances, members are similarly required to update this information on Responsible Returns within an agreed future timeframe. Old document versions may be reflected on site until this process is finalised.

Community Access

Other products certified by the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA)

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