Corporate Social Responsibility
“At Scotiabank, we recognize that our work involves more than helping our customers to attain the best lifestyle from a financial point of view and to ensure the return on our stakeholders' investments. We are aware that we have the responsibility to contribute to a much broader array of stakeholders, because our Bank's wellbeing and vitality is very closely linked to the wellbeing of the communities where we serve, both in Canada and internationally . We define corporate social responsibility as the way we interact with our shareholders to fulfill our social, economic, environmental, and ethical responsibilites”.
Rick Waugh, President & CEO.

Involvement in the community
A major part of being a leader in corporate social responsibility lies in being involved in the communities where we work. With the active participation of our employees in the communities, we decidedly and enthusiastically support the social work promoted by our employees and other initiatives that have a positive influence on society.

Education
We support educational initiatives that allow low income-youths to obtain loans to study at a university and to be able to afford the necessary materials so that they become professionals who in the future contribute to their country's development.

The Environment
Scotiabank recognizes the environmental challenges that our society is facing and we support recycling and energy savings programs inside our organization.

Customers
At Scotiabank one of our primary purposes is to be the best in helping our customers reach a better financial balance, providing relevant solutions to their unique needs. With more than 12,000,000 customers around the world, we develop and adapt our services to satisfy very diverse communities to efficiently respond to their feedback and provide education on financial matters. Above all else, we recognize our responsibility to provide the highest level of integrity and ethical standards and we unrestrictedly adhere to the laws of the country to protect our customers and their finances.

Scotiabank's success in relation to these objectives is demonstrated by the ongoing leadership position we hold as witnessed by our customers' satisfaction levels.



Employee satisfaction
The bank's success goes back to the efforts of more than 58,000 employees in the Scotiabank Group and its affiliates around the world. With a wide variety of programs and policies, we have built an extremely diverse work force and we have encouraged a culture based on an elevated sense of community and teamwork. We center ourselves around recognizing and rewarding performance, providing the chance to learn and grow, taking care of our employees' health, and pushing for open, bilateral communication. We carefully measure our performance in these areas through tools that enable us to continue to increase employee satisfaction by being recognized as an "excellent place to work".

Shareholders
Scotiabank is a public entity whose shares are traded on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges.

As of the end of 2004, the bank had approximately 278,000 shareholders. Among them are employees and individual and institutional investors, including investment and pension funds.