The National Bank of Bahrain adopts a framework for sustainable financing with the aim of advancing environmental and social governments and corporate governance

The National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) revealed its adoption of a working framework for sustainable financing, which comes as a comprehensive guide that ensures the consensus of the bank’s financing initiatives with the environmental and social governance strategy and corporate governance.

This framework was developed in cooperation with the Standard Charterd Bank of Bahrain as a sustainable financing structure consultant, and it is compatible with both the principles of green bonds and social bonds issued by the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA), the principles of green loans and social loans issued by the LEC Society (LMA) . The financing structure has been verified through the method of taking the second party’s opinion (SPO) represented by the International Solutions Integrated Solutions Company (ISS).

This framework is an organized approach to the National Bank of Bahrain, which can be remedied to assess the standards of sustainable projects financing, including: renewable energy projects, clean transportation, green buildings, and the continuity of job generation and others.

His approach is centered on four main pillars: the use of revenues as an indicator to determine the criteria for allocating funds for sustainable projects, evaluating and selecting projects according to a strict process to determine the most influential projects, managing revenues in a way that ensures optimal use and the most efficient distribution of them, and preparing reports to ensure levels of transparency and accountability in the use of funds.

Commenting on this occasion, Mr. Othman Ahmed, CEO of the National Bank of Bahrain Group, said: “This official funding framework is a milestone in the National Bank of Bahrain’s journey towards enhancing sustainability in line with the national and global goals and aspirations concerned in this regard.

Rather, this initiative reflects our endeavor to achieve a positive environmental and social impact, through which we aspire to integrate these sustainable practices within our financing activities, to enable customers to achieve their institutional vision related to environmental and social governance and corporate governance, and to contribute to our role in building a more integrity, fair and flexible future for future generations. “

For his part, Dr. Boutros Klink, CEO of Standard Charterd Bahrain, said: “We are pleased to support our relationship with the National Bank of Bahrain and unify our joint efforts to provide the aspirations of sustainability at the local level, which we aim to achieve by providing the necessary support to set an approach and studied for sustainable financing.

We would like to construct the pioneering role of motivating the financial institutions to set ambitious goals that are in favor of achieving carbon neutrality.

We at Standard Charterd Bahrain always adhere to our customers’ support, and leave a dynamic imprint on a journey that turns them into sustainable financing. We are also proud to be a contributing institution in supporting local economic growth for more than 100 years.

As part of a large -scale strategy adopted by the National Bank of Bahrain to comply with environmental and social governance standards and corporate governance, this new framework will be based on effective risk evaluation mechanisms to enhance transparency and accountability in various sustainability initiatives.

By including governance considerations at the heart of its financing activities, the bank seeks to urge stakeholders to reduce risk, and to encourage them to take advantage of the valuable opportunities provided by responsible financing, and to spread awareness of the need to direct resources to support projects with a tangible positive impact.

In cooperation with its peers in the sector and many regulatory bodies and investors, the bank aspires to establish its role as a basic partner in achieving national aspirations entrusted with creating a more comprehensive and sustainable financial ecosystems.