Responsible and inclusive finance

Crédit Mutuel attaches particular importance to the major environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in its business. Whether in its banking or asset management business, it constantly reasserts its determination to support the transitions taking place through ongoing vigilance in the selection of activities and projects for financing.

For more than 15 years, Crédit Mutuel has been developing a responsible investment offering, reasserting its commitment through its asset management subsidiaries (Crédit Mutuel Asset Management, Federal Finance Gestion, La Française, etc.). These subsidiaries integrate ESG criteria as a key part of their investment process and draw on dedicated research teams to analyze issuers’ ESG performance. They have defined investment strategies to guide their investments according to financial and non-financial performance criteria, in particular environmental, social and governance criteria.

Since 2021, and pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2088, the SFDR regulation, the Crédit Mutuel group’s main asset management subsidiaries have been providing details in their fund catalogs of products that promote environmental and/or social characteristics (Article 8 of said regulation) and products that target sustainable investment (Article 9 of said regulation). This regulation provided an opportunity for the group’s asset management companies to reassert their commitment and involvement in market initiatives to promote responsible finance.

The group offers a range of responsible and/or solidarity-based products and plays its role as an active investor in companies in which it holds shares on behalf of its customers. It reports on its activity vis-à-vis these companies in the voting policy reports of its asset management entities, which are included in their respective CSR publications.

Crédit Mutuel is the second largest home loan provider in France, offering expertise in the purchase of a main residence and in financing high-quality rental investments. The group has a market share of 23%, with home loans accounting for more than 50% of its lending activity.

It has capitalized on this position to implement specific measures to help its customers, including a home renovation loan for low-income homeowners and pensioners, and a program to measure the building energy performance of customers' properties.

A longstanding player in social housing (deposits held under Crédit Mutuel’s “Livret Bleu” savings accounts are earmarked in this regard), the group is actively involved in the market for low-income rental loans (PLS) and low-income first-time buyer loans (PSLA). In 2021, it distributed around one third of the entire PSLA budget (€600 million) made available to banks.

In this way, the group provides concrete support to social housing providers. It is also active in this sector through two subsidiaries: Atlantique Habitations, a subsidiary of Crédit Mutuel Loire-Atlantique et Centre Ouest, and Armorique Habitat, a subsidiary of Crédit Mutuel Arkéa.

Through these three channels, the group's entities make a significant contribution to the development of decent housing for those in need.

With its strong local roots and extensive presence in small towns and cities, the Crédit Mutuel group acts as a driving force for France's agricultural and rural economy, through its 18 regional federations and the Crédit Mutuel Agricole et Rural (CMAR) federation.

The 18 regional federations have specialist teams with nearly 1,000 agricultural advisors providing personalized advice to farmers on a day-to-day basis.

The Crédit Mutuel group aims to build lasting relationships of trust with its farming customers, founded on the professionalism of its advisors and the engagement of its elected directors.

Crédit Mutuel Agricole et Rural, a national federation dedicated to the farming sector, embodies the group's historical and enduring commitment to the farming and rural world.

Particular attention is paid to helping new farmers set up their activities. With nearly 50% of farmers set to reach retirement age over the next ten years, generational renewal is a crucial factor in maintaining a viable, livable and sustainable agricultural model across all regions. For this reason, most of Crédit Mutuel's local banks subscribe to ten formal commitments to help new project owners in this sector.

Crédit Mutuel is also firmly committed to supporting its customers with projects related to the ecological transition and arising from new consumer expectations.

Several groups (Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale and Crédit Mutuel Arkéa) offer advantageous financing solutions for such projects thanks to support from the European Investment Bank (EIB). These projects can also benefit from favorable guarantee terms under commitments made by all of the Crédit Mutuel federations to the French national agriculture initiative (INAF) launched by the Ministry of Agriculture and supported by the European Investment Fund.

Crédit Mutuel remains the partner of choice for nonprofit organizations in banking, insurance and services. As an unlisted cooperative bank, Crédit Mutuel has extra scope to provide loans and services to nonprofits, which play a vital role in sustaining local communities and areas.

Crédit Mutuel offers nonprofit organizations:

• a full range of banking and insurance products and online services, as well as phone and internet contracts;
• management support: a quarterly information letter, thematic guides, and legal and tax advice in partnership with a law firm, available on a regular basis or on request;
• the www.associatheque.fr website which provides information and services to managers of nonprofits to help them with the day-to-day running of their organization (legal, tax and accounting news, etc.);
• “social solidarity products” such as the Livret d’épargne pour les autres (LEA) and the Livret solidaire (Crédit Mutuel Arkéa), unique Crédit Mutuel products that enable savers to donate part or all of their interest to one or more partner organizations, depending on the region, involved in humanitarian aid, child protection or the fight against poverty and all forms of exclusion.

Crédit Mutuel is mindful of supporting all of its customers. It recently reasserted its commitment to supporting financial health and banking inclusion by joining an initiative under the Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) and UNEP-FI aimed at promoting universal inclusion and fostering a banking sector that supports the financial health of its customers.

As a regional, relationship-focused bank, the Crédit Mutuel group is particularly involved in efforts to promote banking inclusion and the protection of the least well-off. Customers identified as financially vulnerable have their fees for missed payments and account irregularities capped. In addition, our networks have committed to promoting various inclusive finance offers to these customers, in particular basic banking services (21,298 customers benefited from these as of December 31, 2021) and specific products and services for financially vulnerable customers (from which 75,435 Crédit Mutuel customers benefited as of December 31, 2021).

Eligibility for these dedicated offers is based on the financial vulnerability detection criteria published by the regional groups and the regulatory criteria as amended by Decree No. 2020-889 of July 20, 2020.

Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale has set out its approach in a policy on financially vulnerable customers which is available on its website. Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale and Crédit Mutuel Nord Europe also announced decisions on February 1, 2019, June 11, 2020 and in August 2020 respectively to exempt customers benefiting from this offer from missed payment costs, thereby going beyond the regulatory requirements.

All in all, more than 400,000 customers are identified as financially vulnerable and therefore benefit from these fee limits on missed payments and account irregularities. The health crisis led to a strengthening of measures taken in favor of this group:

• Waiver of all missed payment fees for financially vulnerable customers holding a Crédit Mutuel Facil'Accès account (Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale).
• €20 monthly cap on missed payment fees for financially vulnerable customers benefiting from the dedicated offer (Crédit Mutuel Océan and Crédit Mutuel Maine-Anjou et Basse Normandie).
• Waiver of all missed payment fees levied before the health crisis for financially vulnerable customers benefiting from the dedicated offer (Crédit Mutuel Arkéa).

The regional groups provide details of these measures in their statements of non-financial performance.

The Crédit Mutuel group aims to actively support the local economy wherever it operates. Alongside its national partners, Adie, Initiative France and France Active, it plays an important role in developing long-term employment and providing routes back into work for those excluded from the labor market. Crédit Mutuel works with these partners to enable financially vulnerable customers to obtain support in the form of microloans and advice.

In 2021, for example, it made €14.8 million of financing available through Adie that enabled the creation or maintenance of more than 4,000 jobs. Similarly, thanks to the cooperation between Crédit Mutuel and France Active in 2021, more than 2,000 loans were granted to consolidate or create 3,800 jobs.

In 2021, it confirmed its commitment to the provision of microloans through these three support networks (Adie, France Active and Initiative France) with nearly €424 million disbursed or refinanced for more than 11,000 beneficiaries.

Alongside these partnerships, several federations have set up an enterprise foundation or an association under the “Créavenir” label to offer unsecured interest-free loans, repayable advances, grants and/or guarantees to help create and support economic activities in their regions.

The distribution of personal or business microloans goes hand in hand with the goal of creating secure employment for people excluded from the labor market, such as jobseekers, social security claimants and people with disabilities.

To date, the group has signed more than 200 regional agreements nationwide with social inclusion organizations, among them CCAS, Secours Catholique, UDAF, Secours Populaire, Restaurants du Cœur and departmental councils to support our customers and provide them with suitable advice in all circumstances.

For its part, Crédit Mutuel Océan offers temporary support in the form of microloans to finance basic necessities, help with mobility, job seeking and retention, training and housing.