Worldwide investments in CLUSTER MUNITIONS

2.2.36 Royal Bank of Scotland (United Kingdom)
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is a large international banking and financial services company. It serves
24 million personal, business and institutional customers across the globe. 563
The RBS Defence Sector Position Statement came into effect in October 2011 and states that RBS will not
support any application for funding or financial services from companies involved in cluster munitions. 564
The policy covers RBS’ lending and investment banking operations. RBS screens its customers for
compliance with the policy so it can terminate all services for which it has no binding contractual
agreements. Where there are contractual agreements, it will honour the contract’s provisions but will
provide no additional services. RBS has identified clients who are in breach of their policy, but does not
make this information publicly available. 565
RBS provides investments services to clients and third parties via investment funds, such as funds that
follow an index. 566 Its policy does not apply to such products, such as indexes, tracker funds, etc. 567
How to gain a place in the Hall of Fame?
To be listed in the Hall of Fame, RBS should extend its policy to all its products, including investment
services for clients via indexes, tracker funds etc.
2.2.37 SEB (Sweden)
SEB is a major corporate and investment bank in the Nordic countries, serving large corporations and
financial institutions with corporate banking, trading and capital markets and global transaction services.
SEB also provides financial advice and services to about four million individual customers. 568
SEB’s 2009 Corporate Sustainability Report presented its policy on cluster munitions. It stated that,
following a decision taken in 2009, companies involved in the manufacturing of or promoting cluster
weapons were to be excluded from SEB’s investment universe. 569 In 2014, SEB updated its Arms and Defence
policy, which states that “SEB will not knowingly support companies producing or developing controversial
weapons or trading in such weapons. This also includes the subcontractors of the producers of controversial
or indiscriminate weapons and dual-use technology products.” 570
The policy currently applies to SEB’s commercial banking activities, investment banking activities and SEB’s
own investments, including its actively and passively managed funds. SEB’s policy does not apply to its
discretionary mandates, as the bank explains that “some mandates have their own ethical guidelines and
exclusion policy, which may differ from the SEB policy.” External managed funds that do not carry the SEB
name are not covered by the policy either. 571
In 2014, SEB was planning to include more asset management categories in its policy. 572 As of December
2015, SEB was still working on this revision. 573
SEB’s exclusion list is based on the findings of data provider Ethix SRI Advisors. 574 The list contains the
following companies for involvement in controversial weapons: Aeroteh, Aryt Industries, Doosan
Corporation, General Dynamics, Hanwha Corporation, L-3 Communications Holdings, Lockheed Martin,
Motovilikha Plants, Orbital ATK, Poongsan Corporation, Poongsan Holdings Corporation, S&T Dynamics,
S&T Holdings, and Textron. 575
How to gain a place in the Hall of Fame?
To be listed in the Hall of Fame, SEB should apply the exclusion policy to its discretionary mandates and
to all the funds managed by external asset managers.
181