(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Lani Rose R Dizon |
The Peninsula
Commercial Bank, one of the most digital banks in Qatar, is keen to issue green bonds, which are used to finance 'green projects' such as renewable energy and other environmentally friendly and sustainable initiatives, according to an official.
During a keynote interview at the Euromoney Qatar Conference yesterday, Joseph Abraham, Group Chief Executive Officer at Commercial Bank said the issue of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) will be an important topic going forward for any industry.
Asked on whether the bank was planning to issue green bonds, he said:“Definitely, we would be interested in doing it. But I think we have to be very clear with having all your ducks in a row. There's a lot of green washing happening internationally. So we want to make sure that we are 100 percent compliant”.
Speaking about the bank's ESG initiatives, Abraham said:“ESG is going to be an important topic going forward to everyone, irrespective of industry. For us, our customers, typically the younger generation are more keen on institutions with good ESG credentials and are regulated. Even the stock markets are also keen on ESG. So all institutions will have to look at their ESG credentials. And even from our own board, we are keen to improve our ESG credentials. This is something which we are working on”.
He added that Commercial Bank has created a sustainability committee at the management level, with board level oversight.“Secondly, we've also signed up externally to the United Nations Global Compact across a number of areas including human rights, worker rights, and anti-corruption among others. We had to look at our policies and processes and make sure they are lined up with some of these parameters,” he added.
Abraham, who reiterated that most banks in Qatar are currently very advanced in their digital journeys, stressed that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitalisation in the banking sector. And growth will only increase even more at a very fast rate, and banks have to be nimble, he said.
“Today, I think all of us are pushing towards 100 percent digitisation. Certain aspects like 'Know Your Customer' and AML which used to require physical signature, are being addressed now so customers can do it through video or remotely. One thing we should all be careful about is with digitisation, we're also opening up cyber security. So all of us have to be very strong and constantly improving our defence on cyber security,” Abraham added.
Leonie Lethbridge, Executive General Manager and Chief Operating Officer at Commercial Bank added that digitalisation will grow faster in the banking sector, which will be targeted more by fraudsters.
“During the last two years since the start of the pandemic, we've seen increased fraud cases globally. And fraudsters are million dollar businesses which are very skilled in extracting information from clients. It's no longer adequate to assume that customers can protect themselves. As a services provider, we've done a lot of work to ensure that we can understand where the customer has been phished, and we are real time monitoring those certain indicators of fraud. That's meant a huge investment in technology,” she added.
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