“There is a huge willingness to help everywhere. Our colleagues in the Baltic banks have been keen to contribute to their war-torn neighbour through donations to the local Red Cross units in each country. We therefore chose to propose an increase in the Group-wide contribution to our Board of Directors,” says Johan Torgeby, CEO and president, SEB.
On 1 March, SEB decided to make a SEK 1 million donation to the Red Cross as well as starting a collection where employees can contribute. For every krona collected, SEB contributes the same amount up to SEK 1 million.
This new decision means that the bank’s subsidiaries in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will each donate EUR 50,000 to the local Red Cross Units. In addition, a fund-raise will be started among their employees where SEB will match contributions up to the same amount, a further EUR 50,000 per country.
In total, the donation from SEB will therefore amount to approximately SEK 5 million in the event of full matching and SEK 7.5 million including contributions from employees.
So far, SEB’s employees in Sweden have collected SEK 707 000, and there is an on-going fund-raising for employees outside Sweden where the result is not yet compiled.