Principles of Business Conduct: Doing business with integrity

We are in the business of providing financial services, so our customers’ trust is our greatest asset. At Fortis, doing business with integrity starts by making staff aware of our responsibility to preserve our reputation as a reliable business partner. We do that by making sure every employee adheres to our company code of conduct.

We introduced the Principles of Business Conduct back in 2002 to help employees understand the behaviour and attitude that is expected of them on – and off – the job. The Principles provide practical guidelines for employees in dealing with shareholders, customers, co-workers and the community. Employees can put forward questions to their business’s Compliance Officer or to a central e-mail address. The businesses report on observance of the Principles at regular intervals.

Find out more about how we promote employee integrity by reading our Principles of Business Conduct.

Fortis Integrity Training

But we do more, too, to help our employees do business with integrity. To raise staff awareness of compliance risks, Fortis Compliance has introduced an e-learning tool about key compliance issues – the Fortis Integrity Training. All employees are required to complete the course.

Fortis Integrity Training covers five key compliance themes – confidentiality, customer acceptance, duty of care, conflicts of interest and insider trading – and presents real-life situations describing four people working at Retail Banking, Insurance, Corporate Banking and Human Resources Management. These four employees face thorny problems reflecting compliance themes in the real world. Each real-life situation is followed by a question as to what the employee should do.