Sustainable finance is rapidly gaining traction in the Turkish banking sector, with Akbank, Isbank, Vakifbank and Ziraat Bank all issuing ESG-labelled bonds in the year to the end of March.
The pioneer in the segment, however, and the winner of this year’s award for CEE’s best bank for sustainable finance is TSKB.
The Turkish privately owned development bank – which gets the majority of its funding from international financial institutions and development finance institutions – began adding environmental factors to its credit appraisal process and providing green loans as early as the 1980s.
Since then, TSKB has integrated the concept of sustainability into all its banking services. Three-quarters of its loan portfolio is linked to ESG, with themes including energy and resource efficiency, women’s employment and equal opportunity, renewable energy, regional development, sustainable agriculture, sustainable tourism and social infrastructure.
As a result TSKB was ideally placed to help Turkish entities affected by the pandemic.