Responsible banking

As a responsible bank, our primary objective is to create long-term value. That’s why our strategy and operations are guided by responsible banking principles, including ESG standards and the UN Principles for Responsible Banking.

Responsible Banking: Key ESG Principles in Practice

We take a holistic approach that reflects our commitment to ethical banking practices. Beyond economic value creation, we include environmental and social impact assessment in our decision-making. Sustainable performance also requires active ESG risk management throughout our operations.

UN Principles for Responsible Banking

Discover how we align banking practices with sustainability goals and long-term value creation.

UN Global Compact Principles

Explore our commitment to global ethical standards, human rights, and corporate responsibility.

Our Solutions for a More Responsible Future

Sustainable Financing Solutions

By providing sustainable financing, we provide added value for our customers and for society. There is a wide range of activities that are suitable for sustainable financing. We define financing as sustainable if it has a positive long-term impact on the environment and climate and/or on societal and social aspects, and if it supports the global sustainable development goals.

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Our Risk Process

ESG Risk Process

Only by knowing the impacts of our business activities on the environment and society can we pursue a serious policy of sustainability and align the company strategy accordingly with this goal.

ESG Risk Process

Only by knowing the impact of our business activities on the environment and society can we pursue a serious policy of sustainability and align the company strategy with this goal.

Surrounding the classical 4 pillars of risk management, the cornerstone of the RBI risk management approach, RBI is currently focusing on addressing, quantifying, managing, and integrating the respective risks, but also opportunities. Within the respective pillars, those actions will be further enhanced and developed in the short and medium term in line with market and regulatory expectations.

1. Identification & Definition of ESG Risks

Climate-related and environmental risks
Identifying risks according to:
- Climate-change risk
- Circularity
- Biodiversity
Social risks
Governance risks

2. Measurement Methodologies & Analytics

Use of metrics for measurement of ESG on a customer and portfolio dimension:

Environmental, social and governance score
Green asset ratio
Finance GHG emissions
Science-based targets

3. Steering Approaches, Reflecting Risks & Opportunities

Sectoral strategies & special policies
Climate stress testing

4. Risk Processes and Governance

Credit processes enhancement
Prevention of liability, reputational and greenwashing risk in the design phase

Focus Areas: Climate Risk Management and ESG Implementation

We translate our responsible banking strategy into action through clear ESG measures. These include climate risk management in finance, sustainable lending practices, and consistent ESG evaluation processes across the Group.

Climate risks

We assess the physical and transition risks of climate change to ensure financial stability and meet ESG expectations.

Climate risks

Looking at climate risks, the rise in the global temperature and greenhouse gas emissions has significant consequences for the environment and people’s lives. For many years now, the Global Risk Report of the World Economic Forum has counted environmental risks among the most likely threats over the next ten years.

Climate risks can be broadly divided into two risk categories, although there are some interdependencies. They include the physical risks of changes in climate conditions and the transition risks arising in connection with the development of a low-carbon economy and society. Although the consequences of global warming are only negative, they can be positively influenced by financing renewable energies and energy efficiency, for example.
Sustainable Lending Policy

Our lending policy integrates ESG criteria to prevent financing of environmentally or socially harmful activities.

Lending policy and lending decision process

Our business model is geared around the high-level strategic goal of creating long-term value. Responsible lending is a significant component of this model. We achieve this with a lending policy that is based on continuity. We remain a fair and reliable lender to businesses with future prospects, even in difficult times, and we hold a clear position regarding the handling of sensitive business areas.

In the light of the environmental challenges and the changing expectations of customers and supervisory authorities, we continuously develop our policies and processes in order to ensure the integration of sustainability topics and risks into the lending decision process.

The Code of Conduct is part of our lending policy. All employees involved in lending are accordingly obliged to act responsibly and also to carry out their supervising duties with great care. Likewise, the reputation of our banking group must be considered in all activities and decisions. Our executive managers are responsible for compliance with these standards in their respective areas of responsibility.

Our code of conduct
ESG evaluation process

We evaluate clients and projects through a structured ESG due diligence process to ensure responsible financing.

ESG evaluation process

In addition to the existing lending criteria, RBI already takes into account ESG-related risks at industry and country level and will expand this to the individual customer level.

RBI is committed to including climate and environmental risks in its risk processes and policies.

Sustainable finance is already an important part of RBI’s corporate credit policy and is intended to ensure the integration of ESG-related risks into risk management and underwriting processes. It is also aimed at drawing attention to industries that are enabling the transition to a low-carbon economy.

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Financed emissions

We track and report financed emissions to align our portfolio with climate goals and transparency standards.
Financed emissions

Since 2020, RBI has calculated and published its scope 3 category 15 financed GHG emissions, i.e. the indirect downstream emissions associated with its lending and investment activities. This has been an important step in identifying sectors on which RBI should focus in its effort to mitigate the negative impact on the environment of its customers’ activities.

The methodology applied is based on the PCAF standard – the most widely accepted, GHG Protocol-compliant standard for financed emissions calculations. For the 2024 year-end publication, the scope of RBI’s calculations was enlarged by including the following for the first time:

Scope 3 emissions from all sectors were taken in account when calculating RBI’s financed emissions in order to account for the indirect upstream and downstream emissions of RBI’s customers in accordance with the recommendation of the PCAF standard.
A first estimation of financed emissions associated with the mortgage asset class
PCAF parameters from September 2024, including the inflation adjustment effect, have been used for the year-end 2024 financed emissions calculation for corporate exposures. Additionally, year-end 2023 financed emissions values and emission intensities for corporate exposures have been recalculated using the same updated PCAF parameters to ensure comparability of results across both reporting periods.
When calculating Sovereign emissions, calculation was adjusted so that it accounts for the impact of the purchasing power parity. This change has been a major driver in measured emission intensity increase between 2023 and 2024.
Results are based on the IFRS scope of consolidation.

In total, RBI’s financed GHG emissions calculations covered 56.7 per cent of RBI’s total assets.

The table shows the results of RBI’s financed emissions calculations including customers’ scope 3 emissions for the PCAF asset classes business loans and unlisted equity, listed equity and corporate bonds, and project finance. RBI would like to highlight that the scope 3 financed emissions imply double-counting of emissions in a bank’s own portfolio. This is because some of RBI’s customers’ scope 3 emissions will already be accounted for in the scope 1 and 2 of other RBI customers in cases where the latter have been part of the former’s value chain – either upstream (as suppliers) or downstream (as customers).

How We Define ESG Targets in Sustainable Banking

To advance the ESG strategy, we have focused on select ESG topics. This approach also supports efforts to achieve sustainable development goals through measurable action.

To help our customers to improve their carbon footprint and make their transformation a sustainable success, we need to be able to assess transactions and projects on the basis of ESG criteria and advise our customers accordingly. In 2020, RBI devised a harmonized definition of sustainable customers (including the customer ESG score) and transactions, and made it available to the whole RBI Group in the form of an ESG rulebook.
RBI’s retail banking division (private individuals and SMEs in CEE) has also published its own “Framework for Green and Social Loans”, which was also validated by Sustainalytics. By publishing such a framework, we aim to ensure that our green and social loans to retail banking customers are aligned with green and social bond principles and also meet regulatory requirements. We expect that additional assets can be flagged as green or social.

We have set ourselves the goal of providing best-in-class ESG Services for customers and ensuring a high standard of quality. The dedicated ESG Services Team at head office performs expert analyses and evaluations of corporate and institutional customers from an ESG perspective and helps our customers to identify green and social aspects of their business profile.

To ensure increasing integration of the topic of ESG risks and negative impact prevention into the overall financing process, RBI has implemented corresponding processes and also plans to implement these gradually within the group in the future. For example, a list of corporate activities in which RBI does not wish to be involved (“exclusion list”) was drawn up. In addition, employees received training on identifying certain signals which indicate that certain activities and sectors are particularly critical from a sustainability perspective.

Another focal point within the ESG strategy is the development of ESG branding and expertise in order to strengthen the awareness of change. RBI continuously offers in-house training on sustainable financing and on general ESG aspects in order to promote awareness of ESG issues. The sustainable finance team at our head office is responsible for ensuring that the knowledge and experience on transaction qualification generated at RBI is shared with the subsidiary banks in Central and Eastern Europe and expanded in dialogue with them.

Contact Us About Responsible Banking and Sustainability

Send us your questions and suggestions to sustainabilitymanagement@rbinternational.com.

Sustainability & ESG Responsible banking