Social responsibility
Standard Chartered, along with the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), manages a charity called Seeing is Believing (SiB). The charity aims to eliminate preventable blindness in developing countries. Standard Chartered matches every dollar raised by the organization.
The Priority Academy program was created in 2006 by the bank, with educational programmes including a study tour of Shanghai, a summer internship programme” and a study seminar in the United States. The program donated $250000 to Chan Yik Hei, a science amateur who won the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, for his studies at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. In 2015, Standard Chartered was widely criticised for its $12bn funding of the controversial Carmichael Coal Mine, with a campaign led by Greenpeace calling for them to quit the project. The bank subsequentially withdrew from the deal.