HKMA Outlines Phase 1 of Approach to Promote Sustainable Banking
HKMA published a circular that sets out its work plan for Phase I of the approach to promote green and sustainable banking in Hong Kong. In the Green Finance Forum, which was held on May 07, 2019, HKMA had unveiled a number of measures for promoting the development of green finance in Hong Kong, including the adoption of a three-phased approach to promote green and sustainable banking.
In the first phase, HKMA will prioritize the development of a common framework to enable comprehensive assessments of the "greenness” of authorized institutions. HKMA will collaborate with major industry stakeholders to form a working group to carry out the relevant work. The first meeting of the working group is expected to be held before the end of August. The working group will aim to develop the framework for industry consultation by the end of this year. The framework would consist of both guiding principles and possible metrics for assessing the “greenness” of the institutions.
Such principles and metrics will be developed taking into account both local stakeholders’ opinions as well as international guidelines and recommended practices. HKMA has recently joined the central banks and supervisors' Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) and will participate in the workstreams of NGFS, so that international insights would be considered in the development of the local Framework. Once the Framework is finalized by incorporating the industry’s comments, as appropriate, HKMA will conduct a comprehensive assessment, tentatively in the second quarter of 2020, to inform the future policy development.
Keywords: Asia Pacific, Hong Kong, Banking, Climate Change Risks, Sustainable Finance, NGFS, Green Finance Strategy, HKMA
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