A Socially Conscious Bank

“We are committed to partnering social enterprises to help them achieve commercial viability while pursuing their social causes,” remarked Mr. Lim Chu Chong, DBS’s head of enterprise banking.

Looking to open a bank account? Before you fill up those forms, make sure you are getting into the right relationship!

Today, in Singapore, we have DBS Bank increasing its commitment to do well and do good. Unlike other commercial banks, it’s not all about making money for DBS. Social enterprises (companies with a social purpose) can open a corporate bank account with DBS and enjoy several benefits.

• While small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must maintain at least $10,000 in their account, there is not a minimum monthly account balance that social enterprises need to maintain.
• While SMEs have to pay up to 12.8% per annum interest rate on a loan, social enterprises are only required to pay an interest rate of 5% (less than half) on borrowed funds.
• Each month, social enterprises can also take in 20 Giro payments and issue up to 30 cheques at no cost.

In truth, we are all familiar with the biggest challenge that social entrepreneurs confront. That is finding sources of capital to either help them covert their idea into a viable business operation and meet their social and environmental aims or scale up their social enterprise and do more good in the world.

“We are realizing how do we get out of this first stage of growth into the second stage of growth, and that is where banks and investors can come in and say, ‘This is an area we want to support you with, here is a loan or investment that can help you’,” pointed out by Richardo Chua, the managing director of a social enterprise named Adrenaline Events and Education which employs at-risk youth to organize corporate events.

Richardo Chua is just one of the 80 social entrepreneurs who bank with DBS. In Singapore, we are progressively coming to a view that social enterprises would be the right way to get the economy rolling. Indubitably, social enterprises would necessitate investment in order to become much more independent, gain a competitive advantage and economic footing in the marketplace.

Therefore, Singapore would need more financial institutions like DBS who put away profit-making mindset for a moment, and commit themselves in helping socially conscious clients grow and get off the ground. As such, making more attractive funding options, like DBS’s social enterprise package, available for social entrepreneurs to more possibly embark on their meaningful endeavors. 

References

Sim, P. K. (2012, July 9). More funding options available to social enterprises. Channel News Asia. Retrieved July 15, 2012, from http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporebusinessnews/view/1212560/1/.html