Investment insights

Innovation is key in today's dynamic market. Suni Harford, president, asset management at UBS walks us through two significant innovations she drove in the asset management industry this year — including a ground-breaking approach to climate change and sustainable investing.

Even more so than activist investors, customers and a new generation of employees are driving banks to back environmental, social and governance reforms, executives said during a Women in Banking roundtable hosted by American Banker.

HSBC, Bank of the West and Fannie Mae are among those offering green mortgage bonds, financing commercial clients’ efforts to rein in carbon emissions and developing other novel products that help customers tackle environmental challenges.

New rules on shareholder submissions of proxy proposals could help banks fend off demands to disclose more pay data, cut financing to fossil fuels companies and adopt other reforms.

The initiative, backed by Vice Chairman Anne Finucane and Chief Operating Officer Tom Montag, is Bank of America’s eighth environmental, social and governance-themed bond.

An international coalition led by Bank of America chief Brian Moynihan has proposed a framework for assessing how well big corporations are meeting the environmental, social and governance expectations of investors who value stakeholder capitalism.

Lenders should be subjected to tough reviews of their readiness for economic threats posed by severe weather, required to disclose risks lurking in their portfolios and perhaps forced to set aside extra capital, a government study recently recommended.

The Nashville-based institution is still awaiting regulatory approval on a proposal to operate as a subsidiary of Fortera Credit Union.

As lenders redouble their efforts to measure the carbon impact of their loans, they’re finding that residential mortgages are often one of the biggest line items on their books.

The pair has joined Morgan Stanley among the roster of global banks pledging to measure the impact their lending decisions have on global warming. Citi also said it would finance $250 billion of low-carbon projects.