Sustainable Finance

• Our
  policies
• Lending
  principle
• Sustainable
  lending
• Product &
  service evolution
• Engagement
• Our
  performance

Our sustainable lending policies

We believe we have a responsibility to evaluate all social, environmental and ethical risks before we decide to lend money to an organisation or project.

Aware of the growing pressure to meet the highest international standards in lending, we've developed detailed policies and processes to assess the impact of our decisions on the environment and society.

We are committed to:

• Take account of all relevant international environment and social standards.
• Include a social and environmental assessment in our lending decisions.
• Look specifically at environmental factors where land and buildings are taken as collateral on a loan.

About half of our lending portfolio is to sectors such as finance, governments and commerce where social and environmental risks tend to be relatively low. Lending to higher risk areas, such as forestry, mining, agriculture and manufacturing account for an estimated 54% of our portfolio.

Our relationship managers and risk officers play a vital role in assessing the impact of our lending decisions. We go beyond analysing customer balance sheets to get the information we need. Our system of due diligence extends much further, involving site visits and internal and external consultation. When our people make site visits they need to ask the right questions to verify information and this requires good industry knowledge.

We are adopting this thorough approach to risk management as a core business practice. Starting with high-risk sectors such as forestry, palm oil and ship-breaking, we're building our knowledge by developing sector position statements, reviewing and responding to the Equator Principles and communicating our strategy.

• Find out more about the Equator Principles