HONG KONG and SHANGHAI, March 5, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter "Ping An" or the "Group", HKEx:2318; SSE:601318) has published its 2019 Sustainability Report, highlighting the Group's achievements and milestones in improving environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance in the past year, and its efforts in becoming an active global influencer in ESG.
Highlights of Ping An's sustainability achievements include:
Better serve the real economy
Ping An provided risks protection for over 1,000 major projects of the Belt and Road Initiative and the development of the Greater Bay Area, served over 3 million small and micro enterprises with integrated financial services such as insurance, loans and financing, and provided over RMB1 trillion in insurance coverage and financing services for farmers and rural enterprises in 2019, providing greater dynamics and efficiency in the real economy.
Tech for Social Good
Powered by "finance + technology", Ping An is committed to leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and other core technologies to develop inclusive finance and its loan balance reached nearly RMB900 billion. Through online consultation and intelligent management solutions, Ping An's medical technology benefitted over 300 million patients and assisted 14,000 community-level medical institutions and 300,000 doctors in 2019. Ping An integrated the ethical and legal requirements into the product life cycle, in order to ensure the "human-oriented" and "tech for social good" technological development.
Exerting insurance's nature in risk management
Ping An made more efforts to develop and provide social security products, inclusive financial products and environmental products under the theme of sustainable development. In achieving a stable growth in its insurance performance, Ping An is committed to providing risk protection for social equity and sustainable development. In 2019, Ping An's sustainable insurance insured amount reached RMB121.21 trillion.
Co-development with employees during fast growth
Ping An attaches great importance to talent attraction, and focuses on cultivating and motivating employees, identifying talents and meeting development needs with technological means. In 2019, the company developed a customized career development and education system with total training amounted to RMB1.096 billion. Meanwhile, we have implemented the core employees stock ownership scheme since 2015 and launched the employee long-term service scheme in 2018. Ping An constantly shares its development achievements with employees to boost the company's long-term co-development.
Upholding responsible investment and promoting its development in China
Ping An is striving to become a leading responsible investor in China and exploring the global responsible investment market. The Group became the first asset owner signing United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) in China. In 2019, green investment reached RMB51.245 billion, social and inclusive investment amounted to RMB903.204 billion, the balance of green credit loans reached RMB24.273 billion and the balance of social and inclusive loans amounted to RMB898.921 billion.
Advancing the "Ping An Rural Communities Support" initiative
Ping An furthered the "Ping An Rural Communities Support". In 2019, regarding the Village Officer Program, the total poverty alleviation fund granted was RMB15.745 billion. For the Village Doctor Program, 949 village and township clinics were upgraded, 554 mobile health checks in countryside were conducted and 11,175 village doctors were trained. Regarding the Village Teacher Program, 11,826 village teachers were trained and 1,054 village primary schools were upgraded.
The Group adopted multi-dimensional and multi-layered methods to achieve poverty alleviation through industry promotion, healthcare and education support, aiming at not only poverty alleviation, but also the sustainable development of the rural population. As of 31 December 2019, Ping An had implemented the "Ping An Rural Communities Support" in 21 provinces or autonomous regions across China, and worked out an innovative poverty alleviation model of "education supporting training, industry-oriented self-sustaining capacity building, One Village and One Product, and production and sales empowering".
Given the recent outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19), Ping An has mobilized resources and assisted in the society's efforts to control the epidemic. To date, Ping An had donated up to RMB61.5 million to fight the epidemic and provided free insurance for 8 million disease control and medical staff members and 15,000 volunteers. Meanwhile, Ping An had provided an exclusive epidemic relief fund of up to RMB100 million for public security police and auxiliary police force who were at the frontline of epidemic prevention and control. The fund will also help the forces' families. These efforts are proof of Ping An's commitment towards social contribution as a responsible enterprise.
Richard Sheng, Secretary of the Board and Brand Director of Ping An said, "Ping An has been improving its ESG performance to promote its comprehensive value in the capital market. We believe that, supported by excellent ESG management and practice, Ping An will achieve better risk management, seize the opportunities to boost the steady development and demonstrate its capacity of creating long-term value for investors."
Committed to its responsibility to investors, Ping An made remarkable progress in authoritative ESG Ratings. MSCI upgraded Ping An's ESG rating in 2019. Besides, Ping An became the first insurance company from mainland China to be selected in the 2019 Dow Jones Sustainability Emerging Markets Index. Ping An had also been recognized with a B-level rating in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), which was ranking third among all Chinese companies and first among Chinese financial companies.
To view the full 2019 Sustainability Report of Ping An, please visit: http://www.pingan.com/app_upload/images/info/upload/ef0f6aca-eba2-476c-869d-80a0d88f28cd.pdf.
About Ping An Group
Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. ("Ping An") is a world-leading technology-powered retail financial services group. With over 200 million retail customers and 516 million Internet users, Ping An is one of the largest financial services companies in the world.
Ping An has two over-arching strategies, "pan financial assets" and "pan health care", which focus on the provision of financial and healthcare services through our integrated financial services platform and our five ecosystems of financial services, health care, auto services, real estate services and smart city services. Our "finance + technology" and "finance + ecosystems" strategies aim to provide customers and internet users with innovative and simple products and services using technology. As China's first joint stock insurance company, Ping An Group is committed to upholding the highest standards of corporate reporting and corporate governance. The Company is listed on the stock exchanges in Hong Kong and Shanghai.
In 2019, Ping An ranked 7th in the Forbes Global 2000 list and 29th on the Fortune Global 500 list. Ping An also ranked 40th in the 2019 WPP Millward Brown BrandZTM Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands list. For more information, please visit www.pingan.cn.
