The Hong Kong Monetary Authority and International Finance Corporation announced the launch of the Alliance for Green Commercial Banks in Asia at the IFC-HKMA Climate Business Webinar on Monday.
The alliance will bring together financial institutions, banking industry associations, research organizations and innovative technology providers from across the region to create a peer-to-peer learning platform to help commercial banks make green finance a part of their core businesses.
The Alliance for Green Commercial Banks is the new community of practice to build capacity for commercial banks for financing investments in climate solutions
Vivek Pathak,
East Asia and the Pacific regional director at IFC
The IFC-HKMA Climate Business Webinar was organized in lieu of the 6th Annual IFC Climate Business Forum, originally scheduled for February this year. The webinar will showcase best practices in sustainable business and green banking.
“The HKMA is pleased to be a partner in the green commercial bank alliance, as a regional anchor for the alliance in Asia,” HKMA Chief Executive Eddie Yue Wai-man said at the opening session of the webinar.
“The Asian region has an enormous investment need for green buildings, port and transportation infrastructure, and also energy efficiency. There are great opportunities for investing climate solutions in agriculture, supply chains, renewable energy, and waste solutions across Asia,” Yue added.
The alliance will enable commercial banks to examine their loan portfolios from a green financing business perspective, design new products and services, and make their operations more carbon-neutral and eventually move away from the ground economy. Commercial banks can also manage exposures to climate risks and adopt the best practices for managing the environment and social risks impending investment.
“The Alliance for Green Commercial Banks is the new community of practice to build capacity for commercial banks for financing investments in climate solutions,” said Vivek Pathak, East Asia and the Pacific regional director at IFC, a member of the World Bank Group and also the world’s largest development bank.
“IFC invited the HKMA to join because of its long-standing leadership in green finance across Asia, and Hong Kong’s reputation as a developing prominent green financing hub,” Pathak added.
In her Policy Address late last month, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor pledged to develop green finance to boost investments conducive to reducing carbon emissions and build a low-carbon economy that is more resilient to climate change so that the government can achieve carbon neutrality before 2050.
The government will update the Hong Kong’s Climate Action Plan in mid-2021 to set out more proactive strategies and measures to reduce carbon emissions.
Following the inaugural issuance of government green bonds of HK$100 billion ($12.9 billion) in 2019, the administration mulls to issue green bonds worth HK$66 billion over the five years beginning in 2020-21.
The city’s major bourse, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, will launch its new green and sustainable exchange — the STAGE — later this year to serve as a rich repository of information and data on green, social and sustainability financial products.
The government and the city’s financial regulators jointly established the Green and Sustainable Finance Cross-Agency Steering Group in May to seek advice on policy and regulatory strategies, to promote market development, and to enhance Hong Kong’s visibility as a green and sustainable finance hub.
