Mike Ng

Guided by its purpose and values, OCBC Bank helps individuals and businesses across communities achieve their aspirations by providing innovative financial services that meet their needs. The values they embrace are encapsulated by the acronym LIFRR – Lasting Value, Integrity, Forward Looking, Respect and Responsibility. OCBC Bank believes that putting its purpose and values at the heart of everything it does will lead to good business outcomes. Moving from funding coal power plants to sustainable financeAs Southeast Asia’s second-largest financial institution, OCBC Bank has been at the forefront of various efforts that support climate action. It became the first bank in Southeast Asia to make a bold commitment to stop financing new coal-fired power plants on 16 April 2019. This created a positive momentum – Singapore’s two other local banks, which are key regional players, made the same commitment within the same month. This commitment by OCBC Bank was the catalyst of a renewed green push and expedited its efforts to play a leading role in Asian sustainable finance to accelerate change. In October 2019, shortly after committing to not financing new coal-fired power plants, OCBC Bank became one of the first banks in the region to make a public commitment to build a sustainable finance portfolio worth S$10 billion (US$7 billion) by 2022. OCBC Bank eventually surpassed this target two years ahead of schedule in the first quarter of 2020. A new sustainable finance target of S$25 billion by 2025 was set and again eclipsed ahead of schedule – it achieved S$34 billion in sustainable finance commitments by the end of 2021. In February 2022, it doubled its 2025 target to S$50 billion. As of June 2022, its commitment had grown to S$37 billion. The bank has funded sustainable projects in the region, from wind and solar farms to electric cars, hybrid buses and solar panel installations. Apart from its sustainable finance commitments, the bank is committed to achieving carbon-neutral banking operations in 2022. To that end, more than S$25 million will be invested in decarbonisation efforts in Singapore, Malaysia and Greater China. Weaving sustainability into its strategyThe bank’s commitment to sustainability has been formalised into its strategies – namely its corporate strategy to “Excel for Sustainable Growth,” of which environmental sustainability is a key pillar, and its Climate Strategy, a five-year roadmap with three priorities: moving towards net-zero emissions in alignment with Paris Agreement goals, expanding sustainable financing and the bank’s sustainability-themed product portfolio, as well as growing a bank-wide ecosystem of sustainable solutions and partnerships. OCBC Sustainability Innovation Challenge, October 2022. (L-R) Lin Qing Yao, Close-The-Loop Manager, Tria; Bryan Sim, Sales Director, Tria; and Spencer Low, Chief Data and Sustainability Officer at SATS A recent initiative under the Climate Strategy was the OCBC Sustainability Challenge, launched in June 2022 to identify sustainability-related challenges faced by its corporate customers and source for global solutions that can be commercialised. The financial industry may be competitive and ever-changing, but OCBC Bank will always make it an imperative to be a responsible banker to society and remain resolute in its commitment to sustainability and climate action so that it can do well and do good.

In our more than 90 years of history, stewardship has always been important to OCBC. We believe that collective action is necessary to drive change, which is why we actively engage all our customers in tackling the climate crisis. From individuals to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to large corporates, each segment of our customer base across markets is different. Hence, we make it a point to understand their specific needs and pain points, then address these issues with tailored financing and investment solutions to truly move the needle towards net zero.This is in line with our purpose to help individuals and businesses across communities achieve their aspirations by providing innovative financial services that meet their needs. Catalysing sustainable finance commitmentsOur efforts to provide tailored sustainable financing and investment solutions have produced tangible results across all our client segments. In 2022, our key achievements included:SME and corporate customers – Over SGD10 billion (USD7.3 billion) in new sustainable financing commitments made in 2022 to bring total commitments to SGD44 billion by 31 December 2022, well on track to achieve our target of SGD50 billion by 2025.Corporate customers – Extended close to 100 green and sustainability-linked loans and acted as advisor for over 50 of them.Retail customers – SGD2.87 billion in Eco-Care loans booked in 2022. The value of OCBC Eco-Care Loans extended in 2022 quadrupled from 2021. Currently, 1 in 5 home, car and renovation loans are Eco-Care loans. High and ultra-high net-worth clients – At our private banking subsidiary Bank of Singapore (BOS), we expanded fund offerings to offer clients exposure to a more diverse range of sustainability funds across various sustainability themes including food scarcity, water and climate change. OCBC Eco-Care loans launched at end March 2021, covering home, renovation and car loans. Eco-Care Car loan customers are given three months of free charging credits at over 700 Charge+ charging points across Singapore. Tailoring solutions for diverse needsWe are not the first nor the only financial institution to offer sustainable financing and investment solutions. However, what sets us apart is that our solutions address the unique challenges faced by different segments of customers. We can identify these challenges because we make it a point to truly understand our customers’ needs and are able to leverage the wider ecosystem to solve these challenges. Take our SME customers, for example. SMEs typically have less resources to devote to their sustainability journeys. To address this challenge, we launched the OCBC SME Sustainable Finance Framework in 2020 so that SMEs do not need to develop bespoke sustainable finance frameworks prior to applying for sustainable financing. We progressively rolled it out to SMEs in the region. By end-2022, it was available to SMEs in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia. With regard to the everyday consumer, through our 2021 and 2022 OCBC Climate Index, we found that cost and convenience were two key factors holding them back from making sustainable choices. The solution: We launched OCBC Eco-Care loans at the end of March 2021, covering home, renovation and car loans, offering preferential rates. To provide convenience, Eco-Care car loan customers are also given three months of free charging credits at Charge+ charging points across Singapore. We partnered our corporate customer SATS on the inaugural OCBC Sustainability Innovation Challenge to find solutions to SATS' sustainability challenges. Enabling the transition to net zeroGiven that sustainability is a growth pillar of our corporate strategy, our commitment to helping different customer segments transition to a net-zero economy is clear. We have clear commitments and targets. As part of our Net Zero by 2050 commitment, we will execute the key actions to meet the science-based decarbonisation targets that we set for six key sectors in our commercial and corporate lending portfolio in May 2023 and accelerate sustainable financing efforts towards our target of SGD50 billion by 2025. Partnerships continue to be invaluable, and we will take the lead in fostering a vibrant ecosystem, bringing our customers and other stakeholders together to collaborate on innovative solutions. But I think, it first starts from within OCBC. One of the key pillars of OCBC’s corporate strategy is our "One Group" approach – working together and leveraging the strengths of the entire group across markets. This culture of cooperation and togetherness extends to sustainability. It is truly a group-wide effort and I believe that this is key to creating lasting impact for our clients and the community, for now, and beyond.

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Mike Ng

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Driving the green movement

Tailoring investment solutions for net zero