(Thomson Reuters) - As the collapse and retrenchment of the global financial sector in the past two years painfully shows, the world’s biggest banks are only as good as the risks they finance and the managers that govern them. In the wake of global financial crisis, the sustainability of these institutions, their portfolios and business models has become a crucial commercial issue. But what is ‘sustainable banking’ and why should a bank integrate these considerations into its business strategy?

“Sustainable Banking: Risk, Reward and the Future of Finance” report is an effective tool for risk managers, business developers and senior strategic planners who must engage with and exploit the complex and ambiguous regulatory environment, increasing resource scarcity and changing client preferences. It provides each group with actionable guidance in four key risk policy implementation areas:

• How to assess the sustainability risk intensity of an asset portfolio.
• How to develop risk policy and implementation frameworks that are fit for the purpose of identifying and controlling ESG risks.
• How to align policy frameworks with industry disclosure standards and test their effectiveness.
• How to leverage knowledge gathered by risk functions at the strategic level to allocate capital to attractive business development opportunities.

For more information, visit: here

Alexandra Tracy, ASrIA’s chair of the board, examines China’s banking system in Chapter 7 of the report: here