Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) has amended the “Taiwan Stock Exchange Corporation Rules Governing the Preparation and Filing of Corporate Social Responsibility Reports by TWSE Listed Companies” in regards to the normative content of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports compiled by the financial industry. Announced March 27, 2015, the amendments aim to strengthen the financial industry’s disclosure of specific management approaches and the indicators in their CSR reports regarding the environmental and social aspects considered while providing financial products or services. Companies from financial industry must also disclose the number of employees in non-supervisory positions, as well as their annual average employee benefit expense and the difference comparing to the previous year.
 
 
TWSE states that the focus of this amendment consists mainly of two parts. The primary focus takes into consideration that the operating activity of the financial industry has significant economic impacts for a country. The amended rules therefore states that corporations should refer to the “G4 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines” of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to strengthen the disclosure of specific management approaches and indicators of “economic performance” aspect. The second focus considers "employee benefits," and how these are both an economic value distributed by enterprise, as well as a target that Taiwan must continue to work towards. Thus, TWSE has partially referred to the GRI G4-EC1 indicator, requiring the financial industry disclose the annual average non-supervisory employee benefit expense and the difference compared to the previous year.
 
TWSE would like to emphasize and remind listed companies that the amendment took effect on the date of its publication. Therefore, financial industry CSR reports for 2014 must be prepared according to the new rules, with special importance to be paid to the definition and calculation of the employee benefit expenses of non-supervisory employees. Related issues and detailed instructions can be found on the front page of the Corporate Governance Center / Rules and FAQs / TWSE and GTSM Rules / “Taiwan Stock Exchange Corporation Rules Governing the Preparation and Filing of Corporate Social Responsibility Reports by TWSE Listed Companies” (Chinese only, URL: http://cgc.twse.com.tw/lawTWSE/listCh).