Equator Principles

Unibanco in June adopted the Equator Principles, a set of social and environmental rules applicable in the approval process of loans to infrastructure projects. Currently, 28 banks across the world adopted the Principles, pioneered in 2002 by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a World Bank subsidiary in charge of financing private-sector projects. Unibanco was the first Brazilian financial institution - and from an emerging country - to join this group.

Projects are assessed and classified according to their social and environmental risks. The projects classified as risky are subjected to action plans to mitigate the environmental impact. Unibanco had informally adopted this criterion to approve IFC-funded loans, and in 2004 extended the policy to all lending to infrastructure projects in the amount of US$50 million or above, regardless of their funding origination.

The adoption of the Equator Principles was decisive in the award to Unibanco as Emerging Markets Social Responsibility Bank of the Year 2004, conferred by The Banker magazine and the Financial Times group.

Microcredit

Microcredit is a business with a positive social impact. It contemplates small entrepreneurs, formal or informal, lending small amounts for investment and working capital. Unibanco operates in this segment through Microinvest, a partnership of Fininvest (82%) and the IFC (18%), financing arm of the World Bank. Microinvest was formed in 2001 as an offshoot of RioCred, an NGO already sponsored by Unibanco. Since its inception in 2003, Microinvest issued over 1,800 loans, to a total of R$3.7 million.

Collections and Payments

Unibanco's branch network and on-site corporate branches in 2004 processed R$27.3 billion in taxes, utility bills and similar collections, equivalent to about 58.5 million documents.

In the same period, Unibanco disbursed, on behalf of the federal system of pensions and benefits, R$8.6 billion, processing 15.5 million transactions, 68% of them through magnetic cards and another by direct deposit in current accounts.

Credit Cards

Unicard has in its portfolio some products that channel part of annual fees, and a small percentage of charged purchases, to NGOs and well-known beneficent organizations. They are sponsored credit cards with names like Greenpeace, Fundação Ruben Berta, Aqualung, Abrinq and Pelé. The portfolio comprises 18,000 cards; in 2004, they generated about R$154,000 in donations to the sponsored NGOs and organizations.

Social Investment Fund

Part of the Social Investment Fund's revenue is donated to beneficent projects and organizations, dedicated to vocational education. The fund was a pioneer initiative of Unibanco's Private Bank, in 2001, and resorts to a committee of 15 participants, all recognized by their expertise in the social area, to define donations criteria and choose recipients. The committee's decisions are then evaluated by the Instituto para o Desenvolvimento do Investimento Social (Idis), which also monitors the projects. So far the Fund's donations totaled some R$400,000 and currently benefits the following organizations:

Associação de Promoção Humana Divina Providência - www.cidadedosmeninos.org.br
Centro Israelita de Assistência ao Menor - www.ciam.org.br
Obras Sociais Universitárias e Culturais - http://integracao.fgvsp.br/projetos15.html
Cruzada do Menor - www.cruzadadomenor.org.br