Helping a Financial Services Group Tell Its Story

Nordea is the largest financial group in the Nordic and Baltic region, providing banking services, insurance and investment advice.

Nordea holds leading positions in corporate, institutional, private, and retail banking, and is also the leading provider of life and pension products in the Nordic countries—in short, it plays a significant role in the business and private lives of Nordic citizens. 

The Challenge

Public confidence in the banking sector has remained low since the financial crisis and trust is at a premium. Through stakeholder consultation, Nordea knew that their customers wanted more insight into their engagement with CSR and clear evidence that the company was operating with integrity. While keen to provide this, Nordea wasn’t sure how best to go about it. They recognised the need for transparency but felt they weren’t telling their story in a compelling way.

How We Helped

Junxion identified two key areas where Nordea needed support—developing a strong theme and key messages and ensuring their CSR report conveyed them in a compelling way.

Through a series of client interviews, we discovered that the storyline for the report should be “lifelong relationships”. In essence, increasing people’s trust in Nordea will help the company form deeper relationships with their customers and deliver on its business goals. Nordea will build this trust by demonstrating how they have integrated sustainability thinking into what they do and how they do it.

Junxion also came up with a series of supporting messages for each chapter that illustrated various ways the client can develop these relationships, such as being values-based and demonstrating leadership. We then edited the featured copy to ensure that the storyline and key messages emerged, and advised on the presentation of data and process diagrams.

Measuring Success

The report has been well received internally. The CSR team and executive management all feel that this year’s report has surfaced the connections between the CSR programme and the business strategy, which serves to make the CSR programme relevant to staff’s everyday work.

Nordea has set its sights higher and is taking a wider view of its responsibilities to be a good corporate citizen. Nordea is now setting goals that will resonate with people outside the company in the wider society. In short, it is linking its sustainability ambitions with its brand.