In dialog with Selim R. F. Hussain, Managing Director & CEO, BRAC Bank Limited
The Daily Star (TDS): Your financial institution has been acknowledged as one of many Top Banks and Financial Institutions within the ‘Sustainability Rating 2022’ by the Bangladesh Bank. What are probably the most progressive and impactful sustainable financing merchandise or methods you’ve adopted to realize this recognition?
Selim R. F. Hussain (SRFH): We are honored to obtain recognition as one of many main sustainable banks three years in a row. We conduct banking with a conscience, holding values at our core. Our Pro-People, Pro-Planet, and Pro-Society mission ensures that we take cognizance of consumers and the planet whereas working in the direction of collective prosperity.
Some of our Sustainable Financing options embrace inexperienced financing targeted on environmental development, sustainable agriculture tailor-made to advertise agricultural methods, sustainable CMSME (Cottage, Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises) financing by incentivizing sustainable business methodologies, socially accountable financing leading to constructive social modifications, and digital financing by harnessing expertise to grant micro-loans for renewable power ventures and increase monetary inclusion.
TDS: How does your financial institution assess the creditworthiness and threat related to sustainable financing tasks in comparison with conventional tasks?
SRFH: Sustainability doesn’t essentially equate to compromising profitability or rising threat. Our devoted Sustainable Finance Unit and Credit Risk Management (CRM) scrutinize tasks, emphasizing their environmental and social repercussions, alignment with sustainable growth goals, and resilience towards environmental and societal challenges.
After meticulous scrutiny and influence evaluation, we companion with tasks with clear ecological payments. This creditworthiness evaluation, sustaining worldwide benchmarks, helps us hold the non-performing mortgage (NPL) ratio beneath business requirements. Many of our inexperienced financings went to top-tier RMG corporations, our trusted prospects with wonderful fee conduct, helping us in holding NPL in examine.
TDS: How are you using the Green Transformation Fund and the inexperienced refinancing applications that Bangladesh Bank gives?
SRFH: Our major goal with Bangladesh Bank’s refinancing schemes is to facilitate the textile and garment sector’s transition to eco-conscious and energy-saving applied sciences. In 2022, BRAC Bank disbursed 23% of its complete disbursement in sustainable finance towards our goal of 20% set by Bangladesh Bank, whereas the business common is 12%.
BRAC Bank can be doing exceedingly effectively in assembly disbursement targets in inexperienced financing. We disbursed round 6% of our complete long-term loans on this phase, significantly in energy-efficient equipment, inexperienced business, renewable power, and waste administration areas. This manifests BRAC Bank’s standing as an implementation companion of the Green Transformation Fund and inexperienced refinancing schemes.
TDS: What are your future plans to information your financial institution with this sustainable spirit?
SRFH: BRAC Bank acknowledges its accountability to make use of its banking and financing interventions responsibly to contribute to the sustainable growth journey of the nation. By fulfilling the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and selling girls’s empowerment, BRAC Bank strives to scale back its carbon footprint and contribute to society’s worth. Our sustainability ambitions embrace augmenting our sustainable financing choices, unveiling groundbreaking digital avenues to amplify inexperienced financing, intensifying collaborations with stakeholders to rally a unified shift in the direction of sustainability, integrating sustainability extra intrinsically into our operations, and epitomizing greenness from our branches to backend procedures.
TDS: What do you count on from the federal government to make the banking sector extra sustainable?
SRFH: BRAC Bank needs to nurture sustainability in its on a regular basis banking operations. To expedite the development to sustainable banking, we urge the federal government to develop all of the refinancing schemes, roll out enhanced incentives and subsidy applications for inexperienced and sustainable initiatives, and problem lucid, exhaustive laws and directives on sustainable banking.
Additionally, the federal government can intensify public outreach concerning sustainability, escalating the demand for eco-friendly choices, domesticate public-private synergies for R&D in sustainable applied sciences, and launch coaching initiatives for the finance sector, making certain adeptness in steering the inexperienced shift.
