It is rare, even unique, for a bank’s global head of sustainability to simultaneously act as its head of corporate and investment banking (CIB). In an interview with Euromoney, BBVA’s Javier Rodríguez Soler explains why it makes sense.
Sustainable finance is the prime area in which the firm is seeking to compete in CIB, especially outside Spain and Latin America, where it owns retail banks. That marks out the firm from some of its European peers, including Banco Santander, which are competing in a broader range of business in the US, for example.
But Soler’s viewpoint, as the twin head of sustainability and CIB as of last year, will be of interest for bankers at other European and global banks – as they, too, focus ever more on helping corporate clients on the route to net zero.
BBVA launched a takeover bid for Spanish lender Banco Sabadell earlier this year, with the stated ambition of being the largest bank by market capitalisation in the euro area.
But the goal is not balance-sheet management. It’s to help those clients who are investing in the decarbonisation opportunity. Balance-sheet management is a tool; it’s not an end
This comes amid a debate about whether European banks and capital markets have the balance-sheet capacity and scale to finance the energy transition – a debate that has recently gained prominence in the wake of various high-level reports on the topic, including one this September by former European Central Bank governor and Italian prime minister Mario Draghi.
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