Most Innovative Bank in Asia-Pacific| TAIPEI FUBON BANK

In 2024, the Taiwan bank introduced IntelliChat, a chatbot enabled by Gen AI, designed to handle customer-service queries. It has improved the retail-user experience at the bank by reducing previously long wait times for account information. Waiting to speak with a specialist or chatbot took an average of 27 seconds before implementation, compared with 20 seconds after implementation. At the same time, call volume increased from 176 calls per day to 208 calls per day.

AI is also being used to sharpen the bank’s marketing efforts. LeikaAI, an in-house solution that optimizes marketing-audience selection, has replaced manual marketing processes based on structured query language. It can generate precise customer segments in 20 minutes that would have required three or four days to complete earlier.

Meanwhile, the bank introduced a new version of its mobile banking app that integrates banking, securities, property insurance, and life insurance services. Using predictive modeling, the app is also able to personalize recommendations for customers.

Most Innovative Financial Technology Company in Asia-Pacific | KASIKORN BUSINESS-TECHNOLOGY GROUP

A depository institution’s core banking system is its backbone—the back-end information-technology system that processes daily banking transactions and updates financial accounts and records.

Thailand’s Kasikornbank, also known as KBank, set before itself a daunting task: Create an entirely new core banking system without impacting the continued working of the incumbent system. More than 2,000 applications and interfaces would be affected during the process.

The new system was developed by KBank’s technology arm, KBTG, and went live in October 2024 after 22 months of work involving 1,000 employees. It has increased KBank’s transaction capacity by 50% and now supports up to 60 million customer accounts.

Mobile banking transactions at KBank have surged in recent years, necessitating the upgrade. K PLUS, one of the bank’s mobile apps, already has 23 million users and accounts for 30% of all financial transactions in Thailand.

Intelligent Risk Prevention Solution Based on Collateral Management| CHINA CENTRAL DEPOSITORY & CLEARING

Implemented last year, CCDC’s risk prevention solution uses high-tech algorithms to automate and optimize collateral management within China’s bond market, the world’s second largest. It does so by applying robotic process automation and optical character recognition technologies to previously manual processes.

The risk prevention tool has improved operational efficiency by approximately 50%, according to CCDC, while reducing human error risks and improving resource allocation. CCDC clients can now use up to 20.9% of their holding assets as collateral, a high percentage for any platform.

AI-Powered Green Fintech for Sustainable Financing Business| CTBC BANK

Launched last November, this Scope 3 emission management solution from Taiwan’s CTBC Bank addresses the challenges facing financial institutions seeking to manage (Scope 3) greenhouse gas emissions. Partnering with Evercomm, a provider of digital sustainability solutions, the platform enables banks to measure the carbon impact of their financing decisions and track their sustainability targets.

Based on the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s AI in Green Fintech initiative, the platform uses publicly available ESG information and high-tech robotic process automation tools to extract the necessary emissions data.

Customer Service Officer (CSO) Assistant| DBS

DBS, a leader in innovation, uses AI to free its customer service officers from some of their most operationally taxing chores. The automated CSO Assistant transcribes and summarizes live customer calls and includes an email triaging tool that has already prioritized more than 48,000 offline messages.

Launched last August, CSO Assistant has improved the effectiveness of some 1,000 CSOs across Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and India, according to DBS, reducing the average time required to handle a single call by at least 5% while capturing conversations with customers more accurately.

Transforming Payment Process with Tokenization| OCBC

OCBC partnered with the Land Transport Authority of Singapore (LTA) last November to implement a blockchainbased solution for disbursing advance payments to LTA’s contractors. These can amount to millions of dollars and are critical to defraying contractors’ heavy upfront capital outlays.

Payments by LTA are now disbursed automatically almost immediately, once the blockchain’s smart contracts have verified that agreed-upon conditions have been met. Payments are also more transparent, secure, and traceable, for payer and payee alike. To date, over $22 million has been disbursed to LTA’s main and sub-contractors. 

Most Innovative Bank in Central and Eastern Europe| AKTIF INVESTMENT BANK

Aktif Investment Bank, Turkey’s largest privately owned inves tment bank, has applied AI to boost internal bank processes. In early 2025, the bank launched an AI-driven digital interview system that integrates realtime lip synchronization and natural conversation using ChatGPT. Lip synchronization makes the AI interviewer appear more lifelike and engaging.

The new platform reduces the high cost of traditional interviews by automating the screening process and minimizing the need for human intervention in the early stages of the recruitment process. It’s multilingual, too, allowing candidates to interview in their native language.

The bank has also implemented AI to detect fatigue among its call-center employees. Undetected worker burnout is a problem that plagues many call centers; and this new system utilizes deep learning for real-time facial-movement analysis—assessing microexpressions, smile frequency, and facial tension in real time. Managers can then take fast corrective actions.

Most Innovative Financial Technology Company in Central and Eastern Europe| INPOST PAY

Poland’s InPost Pay has developed an online app that streamlines customers’ online shopping experience by combining payments and deliveries on a single unified platform. Once customers register with InPost Pay, they can shop at multiple online stores without logging in at each store. They don’t have to select a payment option and a means of delivery each time either, because those preferences are saved within the system. Customers can edit their shopping cart purchases at their leisure too.

Studies have shown that 60% to 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned by consumers—a pain point for merchants and consumers.

InPost Pay claims to have lowered that rate substantially. InPost Pay acquired 3 million users in the first six months after the solution’s 2024 launch. The company expects to expand the service beyond Poland soon. 

Your Everyday Financial Companion Akbank Mobil: For You| AKBANK

In January, Turkey’s Akbank launched a revamped version of its mobile banking app with a new multi-dimensional ecosystem that integrates lifestyle elements, personalized insights, and partner-based capabilities. Utilizing AI, the app provides leads and insights in a range of areas including travel planning and household budgeting. Since the revamp, the app has had 4.8 million unique visitors, 214,700 of whom have become mobile active for the first time. Akbank reports that its gross profits have ballooned since the launch.

CSOB Mortgage with Digital Signature and Mortgage Zone| CSOB

CSOB has boosted its mortgage activity by applying an emerging technology to a local problem. Beginning in March, advanced electronic signature technology enables customers to sign mortgage and collateral agreements, completing a range of mortgage processes, without entering a bank branch.

The new tool saves significant time for mortgage applicants, too, because they no longer must deal separately with the Czech Republic’s land registry office. Everything can be done by mobile phone or on a home computer. More than one-third of CSOB’s mortgage activity is now completed using a qualified electronic signature.

Next-Generation Fraud Detection and Prevention System| KAPITAL BANK

Kapital Bank last year became Azerbaijan’s first financial institution to integrate advanced real-time monitoring and multi-layered cyber defense mechanisms for fraud prevention.

The new system applies 54 distinct prevention controls aligned with global standards for information security management systems. A 24/7 monitoring mechanism blocks attempted fraudulent actions before they can occur, shielding Kapital Bank’s 5 million-plus customers. Last year, the system thwarted 198,734 fraudulent transactions, double the previous year’s total, the bank reported.

Bancassurance| MAIB

MAIB last year became the Republic of Moldova’s first bank to fully integrate digital insurance with its bank offerings. Retail bank customers can now purchase credit protection insurance to cover loan installment payments in case of illness or job loss.

The entire process, from loan agreement to compensation, can be handled directly on the maibank mobile app, including vehicle and travel insurance coverage. MAIB worked with Donaris Vienna Insurance Group to make these sometimescomplex insurance products more understandable and accessible for bank customers.

RBI’s New Cash Management Digital Ecosystem| RBI

RBI has been a regional leader in adopting faster, more secure processes for electronic bank account management. Its new cash management system provides real-time updates and streamlined data reconciliation as first steps enroute to fully digitized management of all bank accounts.

RBI has also accelerated onboarding for its large international customers, including the New Yorker fashion chain, by bundling centralized treasury capabilities, plug-and-play API integration in SAP software solutions, and convenient account management.

Enhancing Slovak Call Center Customer Service with Fine-Tuned Whisper Model| TATRA BANKA

Tatra banka, a serial innovator, has developed a new customized speech-to-text model for transcribing call-center recordings. Developed by the Slovakia-based bank’s advanced analytics department, the service leverages generative AI and was fine-tuned on the bank’s own internal speech data.

Tatra banka’s aim was to extract information, dates, and account amounts. The system automatically records who called, the date, and reason for the call, as well as the size of the caller’s bank account(s). The model also analyzes text transcriptions to gain insights into customer concerns using Whisper, an open-source automatic speech recognition system the bank customized for its own speech-to-text needs.

Thomas Cowan: One difference is that once you’ve completed that due diligence and you’ve put the asset on-chain—as a NFT that is mapped to the violin—all that information remains encapsulated in the NFT: the violin’s history, its former owners, etc.

GF: And that makes it more easily traded?

Cowan: The next person won’t have to do nearly as much diligence, because they will have the history already on-chain. You end up saving a lot of costs on the due diligence side, because the source of truth and the source of record are fully on-chain, already there.

Another advantage is transparency. Minting a publicly recorded NFT on the Ethereum blockchain [as happened with the Stradivarius] ensures a verifiable, fraud-proof record of ownership and provenance.

GF: By tokenizing a 300-year-old violin that once belonged to Catherine the Great, what financing opportunities do you open up?

Cowan: Owners can unlock liquidity without necessitating a sale if they convert the asset into a digital token. The violin can then be utilized as collateral. This can fundamentally transform the way these assets interact with financial markets.

GF: Can tokenization make global finance safer?

Cowan: Think back to the situation before the 2008 financial crisis, when you could buy into a mortgage-backed security pool, but you didn’t know the performance of the underlying loans. Well, with tokenization, you see every single underlying loan. If I’m buying a senior tranche of a debt pool, I know exactly what that risk looks like because I can see every single loan.

GF: What were the key challenges in making this project happen?

Cowan: The legal aspects were a hurdle. With a traditional IPO or a bond issuance, you have the legal documents, which are pretty standard across the industry. It turns out there are no standard legal documents out there for violin tokenizations. So, we had to really start from scratch.

GF: What are some other areas ripe for tokenization?

Cowan: I think we’ll really begin to see an increased interest in on-chain debt, especially structured products and private credit, over the next year or two. Tokenization technology can create a lot of efficiencies there.

GF: What about real estate and equities?

Cowan: I think real estate is still relatively far out. You’ve got property laws that differ based on country, state, and municipality, for instance. Also, much of the history with real estate is still paper based.

As for equities, a few months ago, I would have said we have a long way to go. But because of how quickly regulatory clarity is coming [especially in the US] and how quickly the Securities and Exchange Commission is moving [with regard to crypto and blockchain technology-enabling regulation], the industry may move faster on tokenizing equities.

GF: What obstacles remain before tokenization of financial products becomes widespread?

Cowan: We still have regulatory challenges, and of course identity and know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) challenges. Those are not going away.

GF: Overall, what does tokenization mean for global finance generally? Will it really change the landscape? Cowan: Over the past decade, we’ve been moving forward without regulatory clarity. But when we are given rules of the road, we’re going to see a lot of capital, especially from institutions, flood into the industry because they’ve seen the value of the technology. We’ll get cost reduction, but also a much more inclusive economy.

Paul Brody: The ability of people to pay each other in dollars is hugely valuable. And to give you a sense of how big stable- coin dollars have become, last month the ethereum blockchain ecosystem did $2 trillion in stablecoin payments, over 99% of which were in US dollars.

GF: Who is actually using them?

Brody: By far the most popular initial use case for stablecoin is in emerging markets. Countries without independent central banks often experience high inflation or even hyperinflation, and so demand for US dollars is really high among the local population.

GF: And they’re being used for cross-border remittances too?

Brody: A lot of traditional cross-border systems take days to execute, and they cost a fair amount of money. If both participants have smartphones and cryptocurrency accounts, you can send dollars across borders in a matter of seconds for almost nothing.

GF: Lately, the US Treasury Department seems to be saying that the US doesn’t need a central bank digital currency [CBDC], i.e., a digital dollar. It can use stablecoin. Is that your read too?

Brody: What we need is well-regulated stablecoin. We need some regulatory safeguards to make sure that if you say there’s a dollar on-chain, there’s also a dollar in the bank account to back that up, or its equivalent in assets.

CBDCs have been flopping, mostly because central banks don’t really know why they’re doing them. I’ve talked to many central bankers, and they generally have no idea why they’re doing this other than Facebook wanted one.

GF: How will blockchain technology change things for corporate CFOs and treasurers?

Brody: CFOs and treasurers have some questions to ask themselves: Am I plugged into the crypto and blockchain system? Can I make stablecoin payments? Should I include bitcoin in my corporate treasury alongside US dollar-denominated bonds? Going further, can I automate my business contracts? My procurement? How can I run my business operations more efficiently? And if a customer wants to pay me in stablecoin, can they do so? The answer for most companies today is, no, they can’t.

GF: If you’re a stablecoin issuer, how do you make a profit on that business?

Brody: You make money with transaction fees and, potentially, your float on the interest rate. But that depends on interest rates. If rates go down really low, it’s going to be a painful business. Fees are pretty small because it’s such a competitive environment.

GF: What does all this mean for banks generally going forward? Is it going to lessen their importance?

Brody: It’s going to change banks’ role, and may diminish it. It depends on how a bank makes its money.

Banks that make their money processing credit card transac- tions are the most at risk because blockchains represent a new, more efficient way to process transactions. You swipe your credit card in a store, and you don’t see the cost of the payment, but it’s real and it’s substantial, like 3% to 4%. International wire trans- fers are usually a fixed fee, as much as $50. Stablecoin transfers cost almost nothing by comparison.

But if you’re a regional bank that does a lot of corporate finance, blockchain probably doesn’t change your business that much.

GF: What about major custody banks, such as BNY Mellon, JPMorgan, etc.? Is their business at risk?

Brody: Major custody banks are in an interesting place. They have a ton of assets, and if you’ve got assets and you control and custody those assets, you’re then in a position to help people tokenize them.

So, this new technology is certainly a threat, but it’s also potentially a substantial opportunity. At the end of the day, if you’re custodying assets and you’re now helping people tokenize them or manage them in different ecosystems, that represents the additive potential to your business.

GF: In your book Ethereum for Business, you highlight the importance of blockchain-based smart contracts. With these, one can define not only dollars but all sorts of things, even coffee mugs. Why aren’t more corporations using smart contracts?

Brody: The answer is that blockchains don’t yet have privacy built into them, and this is a huge problem. But it’s being fixed. It’s like the early days of the internet, when we didn’t have encryption. Most companies don’t feel comfortable doing business without privacy.

It’s why private blockchains have never worked. If companies had a private blockchain, they thought it ensured privacy. What they didn’t realize is that inside that walled garden there’s still no privacy. If you’re a big company and you have all your suppliers in your private blockchain, you still can’t run your procurement process there, because supplier A can see how much you’re paying supplier B, and also how much you’re ordering from them.

GF: How deep are banks going to go in providing blockchain services?

Brody: Every single bank is going to offer some kind of DLT [distributed ledger technology] service. You have stocks, you have bonds [to offer clients], and now you may add crypto. Other institutions may send cash to an ethereum address for you, instead of setting up a wire transfer to a bank address. There will be new versions of money transfer and payments, and some of them are going to be quite sophisticated.

GF: Skeptics are asking when they will see blockchain’s “killer app”: meaning an application that’s universally used, along the lines of what email did for the internet?

Brody: Stablecoins are the killer app, the one that gets everybody on-chain. The stablecoin market is about to get crazy competitive, and yield-bearing stablecoins will be widely available soon.

“CFOs and treasurers have to ask themselves: If a customer wants to pay me in stablecoin, can they do so?”

GF: All in all, is blockchain a niche innovation—useful but not earth-shattering—or is it something that can fundamentally change global finance?

Brody: It’s not only going to change global finance, but it will transform all global commerce.

Blockchain is going to become the plumbing by which all B2B transactions are done.

And the reason it’s so transformational is that historically, money, contracts, and “stuff” [i.e., goods] all were in different systems. Companies still spend huge amounts on reconciling money, stuff, and contracts. For example, it costs the average large company about $100 to pay a bill. And the reason is, somebody in procurement has to say, I’ve got this bill. Does it match the purchase order that I sent out? Do the terms on the bill and the purchase order match the terms of the contract? And so on. Imagine a future where the money, the stuff, and the terms of the contract are all in the same digital system and they all reconcile with each other. It’s done instantly. In 10, 15 years, the whole process will be universal and invisible. Back-end plumbing, right?

It could be a harbinger of things to come.

After years of keeping their distance, movers and shakers in the traditional financial world appear ready to play ball when it comes to cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. (Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a stable value over time; they are typically pegged 1:1 to the value of traditional currencies like the US dollar or the euro.)

“The financial services industry is on the verge of entering the crypto economy,” Fortune reported Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan saying in February. And in March, Fidelity Investments, one of the world’s largest asset managers, was reported to be in advanced testing of its own stablecoin.

Competitive pressure and the need for a fast time to market are key drivers—fueled by rising demand from clients, including corporates, and by a shifting macroeconomic backdrop marked by Trump-era tariff threats and doubts about the global dollar system’s resilience. Together, these forces are pushing banks and asset managers to hedge geopolitical risk and tap new revenue streams through digital assets.

The Intesa purchase was made through Boerse Stuttgart Digital, which recently became Europe’s first regulated exchange for trading digital assets under the EU’s new Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) framework. The exchange is a unit of venerable Boerse Stuttgart Group, Europe’s sixth-largest exchange group.

“Institutional adoption of crypto assets is gaining momentum across Europe,” observes Joaquín Sastre Ibáñez, chief revenue officer at Boerse Stuttgart Digital. He expects other European banks and institutional investors to follow Intesa’s footsteps.

“In Germany, for example, we have recently partnered with DekaBank to offer crypto trading to institutional clients,” Sastre Ibáñez notes. Many financial institutions had been waiting for a clear regulatory framework before introducing crypto offerings to their customers, which MiCA now provides.

It’s not just in Europe that the crypto temperature is rising. In early March, the US established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, and many individual US states, most notably Texas, could soon have bitcoin reserves of their own. Pension funds, too, are “dipping their toes into buying bitcoin,” The Financial Times reported in January, including funds in the UK and Australia, “a sign that even typically staid corners of finance are finding it hard to ignore the potential outsized returns from cryptocurrencies.”

In the US, stablecoin legislation moved out of a key Senate committee with bipartisan support in mid-March and passage is soon expected. The legislation sets clear rules for stablecoin issuers, requiring full reserve backing and compliance with anti-money laundering laws to safeguard consumers and reinforce the US dollar’s global standing. Stablecoins often act as a bridge between crypto and national currencies; they share the same underlying blockchain technology as tokens like bitcoin and Ethereum.

“The US’s pro-crypto stance is reshaping the global financial landscape by integrating digital assets into the mainstream economic agenda,” says Federico Brokate, head of US Business at 21Shares, a cryptocurrency exchange-traded fund (ETF) provider based in Switzerland.

The creation of the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve along with the US Digital Asset Stockpile, consisting of tokens other than bitcoin, marks a significant shift in institutional perception, he adds, “positioning cryptocurrencies as essential financial instruments rather than speculative assets. This move not only signals long-term confidence in digital assets but also sets a precedent for other nations.”

“Digital assets are here to stay, as convergence of traditional and digital finance advances.”

Joaquin Sastre Ibanez, Boerse Stuttgart Digital

Two major pension funds in the US have already made significant investments in spot bitcoin ETFs: The State of Michigan Department of the Treasury and the State of Wisconsin Investment Board. The latter has committed more than $300 million to IBIT, BlackRock’s spot bitcoin ETF.

“We expect this trend to continue among pensions as regulatory clarity continues to progress in the US,” says Brokate. Institutional interest extends to other regions as well, he adds; Abu Dhabi’s Sovereign Wealth Fund has invested more than $450 million in IBIT.

Simon McLoughlin, CEO of UPHOLD, a cryptocurrency trading platform, sees stablecoins in particular as playing a key role in transforming global finance. “Stablecoins are the future of money,” he says, “so much so, in fact, that in 10 years’ time, we won’t even refer to stablecoins. They will just be money.”

“Stablecoin issuance has grown rapidly in recent years and become a significant part of the financial system,” S&P Global Ratings concluded in a February report. “Stablecoins could enable smoother transactions, faster settlements, and lower costs for cross-border payments—especially in areas that lack access to traditional banking infrastructure.”

Indeed, stablecoin market capitalization reached $230 billion in mid-March, up 56% from a year earlier; analysts at Bernstein predict market cap could exceed $500 billion by yearend.

Fintechs like Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC) are pioneering the issuance of stablecoins, but other issuers may soon jump in.

“There will be stablecoins run by municipalities, businesses, and other organizations,” McLoughlin predicts. “But most importantly of all, there will be stablecoins issued directly by banks. We will have branded money.”

CFOs may have to adjust their thinking accordingly, he adds.

“CFOs need to start preparing now for a future where some of the functions of corporate treasury and international accounting are fulfilled on the blockchain,” McLoughlin said. When it comes to international payments, for instance, “if one of your rivals is using stablecoins to move money around the world and your business is not, you will be at a distinct disadvantage.”

What about cryptocurrencies proper, like bitcoin? Unlike stablecoins, their market prices have always been volatile. But as more traditional financial firms embrace the crypto economy, those wild price gyrations may flatten out, anticipates Geoff Kendrick, global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered.

“Institutional buyers are less likely to sell on bad days than are leveraged retail buyers,” he says.

Moreover, custody solutions from traditional financial institutions like BNY Mellon or State Street could make storing crypto easier and more secure than current offerings by crypto-focused fintechs. Regulatory clarity in places like the US, too, could lead to less volatility while helping to “remove FTX issues,” says Kendrick, referring to the market-roiling collapse of the Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange in November 2022.

More institutions are interested today in both selling crypto to retail clients and diversification for their own corporate treasuries, says Boerse Stuttgart Digital’s Sastre Ibáñez. His group is partnering with Germany’s DZ Bank, for instance, to offer its retail clients direct access to crypto trading and custody.

If cryptocurrencies become less volatile, more pension funds and insurance companies could dive in, too. In December, one of Australia’s largest superannuation fund providers, AMP Limited, made a A$27 million ($16.4 million) investment in bitcoin futures, which CIO Anna Shelley described in a commentary on AMP’s website as a “cautious step” into bitcoin futures for members. Bitcoin could potentially be used as an alternative store of value to gold, she wrote, on the negative side, bitcoin “offers no yield.”

Still, many of Australia’s super funds—a category that includes pension funds—“already invest in many assets that have no yield,” Shelley noted in her commentary, “such as foreign currencies, derivatives and commodities, and even some listed companies [that] make no profit and deliver no dividends.”

Some partisans set crypto’s sights even higher; one day, they say, central banks might invest in cryptocurrencies for diversification.

“Central banks considering investing in bitcoin could be emboldened by the fact the US government is going to at least hold on to the 270,000 bitcoins it currently owns, and potentially buy more at some stage,” Kendrick wrote in a January note, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Elsewhere, Aleš Michl, who heads the Czech National Bank, told The Financial Times in January that he would present a plan to his board to invest in bitcoin as a way to diversify the central bank’s reserves.

This proposal drew a flutter of scornful reactions. “Michl is mixing up the role of a central banker with that of a portfolio manager,” Elias Haddad, senior market strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman, told Bloomberg.

Indeed, some of this blue-sky speculation may not be accounting for all the risks.

“Stablecoins, issued by private entities, can fail like banks, risking de-pegging,” says Hanna Halaburda, associate professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Then, too, stablecoins are traded on blockchain networks, “offering decentralization and programmability but facing congestion risks and high costs.”

In addition, she notes, stablecoins have limited practical use in the US and some other countries where “traditional banking services are already efficient and reliable.” The largest demand for US-denominated stablecoins is overseas, “particularly in regions with unstable currencies or costly financial infrastructure.”

In many African countries, for example, “stablecoins provide a way to hold digital dollars, preserving purchasing power in economies plagued by inflation,” Halaburda notes. “They are also widely used for cross-border transactions, offering a faster and often cheaper alternative to traditional remittance services.”

But if a US central bank digital currency (CBDC)—a digital dollar—were ever made accessible internationally, that “could potentially serve these roles even more effectively,” she adds.

CBDCs are not cryptocurrencies, of course, but they are digital money like stablecoins: and the two may be in competition. Facebook’s Libra stablecoin, announced back in 2019, spurred digital currency awareness among central banks. The project was later abandoned, but as of February 2025, 134 countries and currency unions, representing 98% of global GDP, were exploring a CBDC, according to the Atlantic Council’s Central Bank Digital Currency Tracker.

CBDCs remain controversial, however, particularly in Western countries, where they come freighted with privacy questions. In January, an executive order by President Trump banned research and development for a US CBDC.

Trump’s rejection of a digital dollar, and his embrace of stablecoins, appears to have spurred the EU to speed up implementation of its own CBDC project. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said recently that Europe needs to push fast on the digital euro.

“Accelerating its implementation suggests that [EU] policymakers see strategic value in a CBDC, particularly in a rapidly evolving global financial landscape,” says Annabelle Rau, an associate at McDermott Will & Emery in Germany. “However, its success will depend on striking the right balance between innovation, privacy, and financial stability.”

The EU has set a high standard for privacy with its General Data Protection Regulation, Rau notes. “Nonetheless, public trust will be crucial, and addressing concerns around data access, anonymity, and surveillance risks will require clear legal safeguards and transparent communication from policymakers.”

Stablecoins and CBDCs might eventually co-exist, although the importance of their role could vary from country to country, Halaburda suggests.

“China favors state-controlled rails and discourages blockchain-based finance, making the digital yuan likely to prevail,” Halaburda says. “The EU is regulating stablecoins under MiCA while taking a cautious approach to the digital euro, allowing both to coexist. In the US, stablecoins thrive in the absence of a CBDC, though pending regulations could either strengthen their role or constrain them in favor of a digital dollar.”

Whether it be cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, or central bank digital currencies, a consensus appears to be forming that “digital assets are here to stay, with mainstream adoption accelerating as the convergence of traditional and digital finance advances every day,” Boerse Stuttgart Digital’s Sastre Ibáñez says. If so, “corporate CFOs should be aware of the growing importance and adapt by integrating digital assets into their financial strategies while ensuring compliance with evolving regulations.”

Fundamental challenges remain, particularly in governance, risk management, and regulatory oversight. “While some convergence is taking place, particularly in areas such as digital securities and asset tokenization, it is likely that elements of both [crypto and traditional currency] systems will continue to coexist rather than fully merge in the near future,” says Rau.

McLoughlin, at UPHOLD, remains buoyant. Consider only the trillions of dollars locked up in banks today to facilitate international transactions, he argues. Indeed, $10 trillion are held in nostro/vostro accounts globally, according to a December report from Bitso Business. “Imagine,” McLoughlin suggests, “what we could do if those funds were available to power growth instead.”

For sustainable finance, 2024 was the best of times and the worst of times.

On the positive side, issuance of impact bonds, sometimes called “GSS+” bonds (green, social, sustainability, and sustainability-linked instruments) totaled $1.1 trillion, according to provisional data published by the Climate Bond Initiative (CBI) in January.

However, on the red side of the ledger, the global coalition to contain climate change seemed to be fracturing by the end of the year. The 2024 US presidential elections brought to power the new Donald Trump administration; and Trump immediately ordered US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the world’s main treaty to fight climate change.

Given the need to more than double spending on clean energy supply, storage, and grid infrastructure to $300 billion/year for developing countries and $1.3 trillion/year for developed countries by 2035 “to keep the 1.5 target alive” (to achieve the goal of limiting global warming to an increase of no more than 1.5°C), “2024 failed to live up to what is needed,” says Gregor Vulturius, lead scientist and senior adviser on climate and sustainable finance at SEB.

Many market observers, however, still see the glass half full—especially looking beyond North America. “The outlook for 2025 is growth in sustainable finance,” says Timothy Rahill, a credit strategist at ING (Netherlands). “We ended 2024 with an increase over 2023. Of course, in 2021 and 2022, the levels of sustainable-finance issuance were very high, and outliers in the initial rush to do green issuance.”

According to CBI’s preliminary numbers, green bonds dominated in 2024, accounting for approximately 61% of the $1.1 trillion GSS+ debt accrued that year, compared with social and sustainability bonds (34%) and sustainability-linked bonds (1%).

Rahill explains that the EU’s Green Bond Standard (GBS), which took effect in December, should eventually push green bonds further. The standard aims to boost investor confidence by setting “a clear gold standard for green bonds” in the EU.

Still, “Many other issuers, such as sovereigns, view the rigorous new requirements [of the GBS] as a significant hurdle,” according to a late-January blog post by global investment firm Franklin Templeton. “They will likely adopt a wait-and-see approach to understand all potential implications before committing to issuing a [European green bond].”

According to Moody’s Ratings, overall bond issuance soared 35% in 2024, while sustainable bonds remained flat; and the latter’s share of the overall bond market fell from 15% in 2023 and 2022 to 11% in 2024.

However, Rahill predicts that in 2025, “Issuers will return their focus to green/sustainable finance issuance.” Moody’s mostly agrees, anticipating new green bond volumes rising to about $620 billion, 2% more than in 2024, “but eclipsing the previous record of $617 billion in 2021.”

Globally, “Social bonds will be constrained by a lack of benchmark-sized projects, while transition-labeled bonds and sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs) will remain niche segments as they navigate evolving market sentiment,” the ratings agency posted on its website.

For sustainable bonds, “Market conditions will remain the same as 2024,” says SEB’s Vulturius, who predicts growth of around 10%. According to SEB’s data, 2024 saw approximately $1.2 trillion in new sustainable bonds versus roughly $1.1 trillion in 2021, the previous record year, though SEB’s numbers, like CBI’s, are still preliminary.

What about the new administration in Washington, D.C.?

“I don’t expect the sustainable finance market will see a major headwind with the Trump administration. I still think we will see growth in 2025, even in US dollar debt,” says Rahill, though some corporations may not commit until the second quarter.

The CBI identified several factors that will encourage issuance in 2025, including new taxonomic definitions and increased spending by governments, development banks, and corporations on efforts at climate change impact adaptation and resilience. The CBI also expects increased visibility from insurance companies regarding sustainable finance in 2025.

Institutions focusing on sustainable finance in its various forms will have plenty to keep them busy in 2025. With that in mind, Global Finance presents its fifth annual Sustainable Finance Awards, with winners from seven regions and 53 countries, territories, and districts; and global honorees in 14 categories.

Global and regional awards require submissions detailing hard metrics of ESG activity, such as year-over-year growth in sustainable finance transactions or sustainable financial instruments as a percentage of total portfolio. Softer metrics also required include goal alignment with leading ESG norms or innovative product development. Entries were not required for country awards, which were judged by the editorial team’s independent research. Evaluation criteria includes governance policies and goals, environmental and social sustainability financing achievements, industry leadership, and third-party assessments. This awards program covers activities from January 2024 to December 2024. There was no fee to enter.

DBS is striving to green Asia’s economy by acting as an environmental-transition catalyst for anchor companies, mid-caps, and small and midsize enterprises (SMEs). The bank provides transition-related financing for these organizations at the corporate, project, and asset level. Among these offerings are green, sustainability-linked, and social loans and bonds, along with carbon-market financing and other products.

Standout transactions in 2024 include a loan to LG Energy to construct a plant in Poland for the manufacture of batteries used in electric vehicles. A 3 billion Hong Kong dollar (about $385.7 million) loan to the Hong Kong Housing Society will help create affordable residential projects. A 300 million Singapore dollar (about $224.2 million) bond will help the Singaporean developer CapitaLand build projects in alignment with green finance frameworks. In addition, the bank develops analytical tools to track and analyze climate data. It engages with industries (notably in the power, automotive, steel, shipping, real estate, and automotive sectors) and policy makers to chart paths to a healthier environment.       —Laura Spinale

Seeking to help Taiwan transition to a greener economy, CTBC Bank is working with Ørsted, the world’s largest developer of offshore wind-power projects, for the construction of the 61.3 billion Taiwan dollar (about $1.9 billion) Project Trinity.

This project consists of two offshore wind farms with turbines designed to withstand typhoons, seismic activity, and other ecological vagaries. Slated to be operational by the end of 2026, the farms—named Greater Changhua 2b and Greater Changhua 4—will generate 337 MW and 583 MW of electricity, respectively. This is enough to power roughly a million Taiwanese households.

CTBC Bank acted as mandated lead arranger and bookrunner for this syndicated loan. In that capacity, it identified and recruited potential lenders and other partners. These include Cathay Life Insurance, Taiwan’s largest insurance company. Project Trinity marked Cathay’s debut investment in Taiwan’s offshore wind market. CTBC Bank also recruited Taiwan’s National Credit Guarantee Administration to act as local export credit agency for the loan package.       —LS

Brazilian-headquartered BTG Pactual has been actively expanding its sustainable funding and transactions that have environmental and social benefits. This includes developing and managing new funds with strong sustainability and impact guidelines for financial products available in local markets.

BTG Pactual raised 542 million Brazilian reais (about $95.3 million) in its impact investing fund, which achieves social and environmental benefits with strong financial returns. The fund invests in small and midsize enterprises through private equity, focusing on educational technology for low-income populations, agribusiness software, alternatives to plastic packaging, and sustainable practices within the Brazilian açaí palm chain.

The bank has also focused on reforestation efforts through its Timberland Investment Group (TIG) subsidiary, which launched in 2021 and has raised $500 million toward its $1 billion target. The group wants to restore about 133,000 hectares (about 328,650 acres) of natural forest and establish sustainable commercial tree farms on an additional 133,000 hectares. As of the first quarter of 2024, TIG had $6.9 billion in assets and commitments and nearly 3 million acres under management throughout the US and Latin America.         —Andrea Murad

China Central Depository & Clearing Co. (CCDC) is a state-funded financial institution responsible for the custody, registration, and settlement of fixed-income securities in China. It functions as an important operations platform for the bond market, a supporting platform for the implementation of macroeconomic policies, a benchmark-services platform, and a key gateway for the opening up of China’s bond market. For example, CCDC provides issuance, registration, depository, settlement, valuation, collateral management, and information-disclosure services for green bonds, social responsibility bonds, and other sustainable finance products.

Its services can help issuers improve information-disclosure transparency and assist investors in identifying sustainable financial products. CCDC also promotes sustainable investment philosophy and otherwise contributes to the development of sustainable finance in China. As part of this work, it develops sustainable development-related indices, including China’s first green bond index, and has developed new standards for ESG evaluation.

—LS

The circular economy is about reusing, repairing, and recycling products and materials instead of simply disposing of them. Pulp and paper technologies provider Valmet has embraced circular economic principles in a big way. It’s now upgrading and extending the lifetime of its machines. The company has learned that modular machine design and smart engineering can often enable the same equipment’s use for other purposes. Valmet is also maximizing the use of recycled metals, reusing metals in its foundries.

Finland’s Nordea was the sole sustainability structuring adviser in Valmet’s March 2024 €200 million (about $206 million) green bond offering, making it easier for Valmet’s customers to manufacture sustainable products from renewable resources in the high-emissions pulp and paper industry. All eligible expenditures from the financing are aligned with the EU Taxonomy Regulation section 5.1 under transition to a circular economy.

—Andrew Singer

Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) has long been considered a pioneer in green bond issuance in its native Austria. In 2018, it rolled out its green bond program aimed at encouraging sustainable lending across the RBI network of 11 Central and Eastern European (CEE) markets. Along with other banks, it participated last June as bookkeeper for Czech power company CEZ’s second green and sustainability-linked bond issue, worth €750 million ($772 million). The 4.25% bonds are due in 2032 and will be listed on the main market of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. “With a total outstanding volume of [€2 billion] across 21 bonds in five currencies in Austria as of December 2023, RBI is the largest green bond issuer among financial institutions in the country and a regular issuer of green bonds on the international capital markets and in the retail segment in Austria and CEE,” proclaims the bank in its Green Bond Allocation and Impact Report 2024.

RBI has also developed a Sustainability Bond Framework to facilitate the issue of sustainable bonds. The bank works closely with clients in countries across the region to determine their needs and long-term environmental goals and tailor any forthcoming environmental, social, and governance (ESG) loans accordingly. In total, ESG loans to corporates over 2024 grew some 14% to €8 billion after a 16% increase in 2023 to €7 billion.    —Justin Keay

Akbank issued its first social bonds in 2022, and they have since proven to be suitable for its general bond issuance strategy. The bank issued some 770 million Turkish lira ($21.4 million) in domestic social bonds from 2022 to the end of 2023. The bonds incorporate three main pillars—environmental, technological, and social—that are aligned with Akbank’s Sustainable Finance Framework. The social pillar focuses on financing products and services to improve the health and well-being of communities in underdeveloped regions, facilitate equal opportunity, and generate employment, particularly among less-represented groups.

The bank has complemented its program of social bond issuance with a program of social loans. In 2023, in the wake of the devastating Feb. 6 earthquake that hit Turkey, Akbank announced the country’s first syndicated social loan, some $500 million in support of the Turkish economy, with a 367-day maturity. Thirty banks from 16 countries participated in this syndicated social loan, which was a first in Turkey.        —JK

Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) in 2024 issued and listed peso-denominated, fixed-rate, sustainable, environmental and equitable development bonds (SEED bonds) totaling nearly 34 billion Philippine pesos (about $587 million). The SEED bonds represent the bank’s largest thematic issuance to date. Proceeds will fund renewable energy, pollution prevention, and sustainable agriculture projects. They will further finance socioeconomic development activities, such as providing access to essential services for poverty-stricken communities.

The bank also served as a joint lead underwriter and bookrunner for Ayala Land’s 6 billion Philippine peso sustainability bond. Ayala Land is one of the largest property developers in the Philippines, and bond proceeds will be used by the company to implement energy and water-saving measures across its real estate portfolio. These measures include energy-efficient cooling systems and water harvesting/recycling systems. These and other activities bolster the bank’s goal of creating a 1 trillion Philippine peso corporate and SME portfolio supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It hopes to reach that milestone by 2026.         —LS

CaixaBank has long been a global leader in microfinance, social bonds, and support for local communities.

The bank’s commitment was tested in October 2024, when record-breaking rainfall and flash floods battered Spain, causing casualties, massive disruptions, and economic losses, especially in the Valencia region. Caixa responded by opening a line of credit worth more than €2.5 billion for companies affected by the catastrophic weather. The bank also allowed commission-free cash withdrawals for customers with cards from other banks, for seven days, at the 785 ATMs it operates in Valencia.

In the first half of 2024, Caixa dedicated €1.08 billion to financing projects that positively impact local communities. This included its Velindre project, helping to fund the design, construction, and operation of an oncological hospital center in Wales. The bank also focused in 2024 on loans to finance projects linked to affordable housing, education, health, social and economic inclusion, and support for small and midsize enterprises in the Madrid area. —AS

Scotiabank’s goals are guided by its motto: “for every future.” This wholesale bank operates in the Americas and focuses on advancing the climate transition and promoting sustainable economic growth.

The bank’s enterprise-wide goals address climate risks by financing solutions for clients in carbon-intensive sectors, advancing net-zero initiatives to reduce emissions, and reducing its own emissions. Scotia’s Climate-Related Finance Framework outlines products and services that meet the bank’s goal of providing 350 billion Canadian dollars (about $246.2 billion) in climate-related finance by 2030.

Scotia’s credit due diligence processes address environmental and climate-related risks across its lending portfolio and are integrated into its credit-risk policies. Scotia Global Asset Management has adopted sustainable investment policies and publishes annual investment transparency reports.

In its Risk Appetite Framework, Scotia uses ESG performance metrics that are also included in its annual industry review process. The climate change risk assessment evaluates physical and transition risks and a client’s awareness of climate risks as a measure of management quality. —AM

Based in Malaysia, and one of the largest lending banks in Southeast Asia, Maybank is committed to serving the emerging markets in the 20 countries in which it operates. Here are some examples: In Indonesia, the bank has embarked on a social financing program to empower disadvantaged women and support growth through its partnership with Permodalan Nasional Madani. This microfinance company, focusing on women in its work with Maybank, strives to enhance the general welfare by supporting small entrepreneurs’ access to capital, mentorship, and capacity-building programs. Understanding that a healthy environment is key to any business’ success, Maybank is working with BenihBaik.com to support the construction of organic waste facilities in three cities in Bali. These waste management facilities will provide a cleaner environment for residents while also engaging in bioconversion processes that use living organisms to transform waste into substances such as methane that can later be used in energy production.           —LS

OTP Bank, formerly owned by the Hungarian state, now operates across 12 CEE countries. It continues to prioritize ESG targets in all its operations and is a leader in transition/sustainability-linked loan issuance. Such loans typically incorporate ESG criteria into the loan terms. Companies that meet or exceed predefined ESG performance targets may benefit from reduced interest rates, incentivizing sustainable practices. Conversely, failing to meet these targets may result in higher interest rates, thus ensuring a strong commitment to sustainability.

Green loans to corporates (including ESG-related loans) rose 38% year on year (YoY) in the third-quarter of 2024 (over Q3 2023), while retail loans rose 17% YoY. Green loans to corporates constitute around 6% of overall loans, to retail around 1.4%. In 2024, ESG financing as a proportion of the total for OTP reached 3.7%, more than double the 1.7% reached in 2023. According to Sustainalytics’ July 2024 report, “€1.26 billion have been allocated in the categories renewable energy, green buildings, and clean transportation, with projects located in Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia.”         —JK

The sustainable infrastructure finance work of Societe Generale (SocGen) includes acting as initial coordinating lead arranger and joint bookrunner for the $8.8 billion SunZia Wind and Transmission project. The project consists of a 3.5 GW wind farm in New Mexico, along with a 550-mile transmission line to deliver this clean energy to Arizona. In Europe, SocGen served as senior mandated lead arranger for €4.2 billion (about $4.4 billion) in financing earmarked for the construction of a large-scale facility to produce green steel. Associated financing will fund the construction of a water treatment plant to supply the demineralized water necessary for green steel manufacturing. Among SocGen’s ESG-related loans are €2.6 billion in financing for the Fècamp 497 MW offshore wind farm in France. SocGen also acted as sole structuring bank for ReNew Power’s 600 MW, 35 billion Japanese yen (about $233.2 million), solar project in India; and as sole mandated lead arranger for nearly 11 billion Japanese yen in funding for Shizen Energy’s Kyushu (Japan) solar power plant.   

Sustainable bond issuance volume totaled $124 billion in North America for 2024, 1% higher than the previous year, according to Moody’s Ratings. The US accounted for roughly 80% of issuance in the region.

However, in January 2025, the new administration of President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement, which aims to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change.

Six prominent US banks, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley, exited the UN-convened Net-Zero Banking Alliance between Trump’s election and his inauguration.

“The backlash against ESG in some parts of the United States may have been one of the reasons behind the retreat of some North American financial institutions from net-zero alliances,” says Gregor Vulturius, lead scientist and senior adviser on climate and sustainable finance at Sweden’s SEB.

Moody’s Ratings expects sustainable bond issuance in North America to be “muted amid a retrenchment of climate policies” in the US over the next 12 months, given the new administration’s climate agenda—but issuance shouldn’t collapse. Corporate initiatives and state-level efforts could counteract diminished federal investment in clean energy in the US, according to the bond-ratings agency.

Bank of America (BofA) has supported sustainable finance in North America for most of the decade, and 2024 was no different. The giant US bank’s projects ranged from leading arranger and lender to a Linden, New Jersey, facility for converting organic wastes to natural gas; to financing for SunZia Transmission and SunZia Wind, which together constitute the largest clean-energy infrastructure project in US history, located in New Mexico and Arizona.

Along the way, BofA also made a $205 million impact investment to help jump-start the new marketplace for carbon capture tax credits in the US. While the credit was created originally in 2008, it was then expanded and extended by the 2022 US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The deal was with Harvestone Low Carbon Partners, which produces ethanol. That process generates carbon dioxide, which is then sequestered in an on-site injection well at Harvestone’s subsidiary Blue Flint’s North Dakota plant.

Harvestone’s carbon capture platform makes it eligible to sell carbon capture tax credits under the IRA, and in September 2024 BofA purchased $205 million of these. This was one of the most significant investments in carbon capture and the first deal of its kind since the passage of the IRA.

Dow Chemical Company issued its inaugural green bonds to a total of $1.25 billion in February 2024 to fund its Path2Zero project in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, among other projects. Path2Zero is the start of what Dow hopes will become the world’s first net-zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions integrated ethylene “cracker” and derivates complex. Cracking is the process whereby complex organic molecules are broken down into simpler molecules such as light hydrocarbons.

It was also meant to show that a project with decarbonization and circularity goals can attract interest from a diverse investor base looking to support industrial transformations through sustainability investment. It is seen as a big step forward for the hard-to-abate chemicals sector.

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) was deeply engaged in developing and publishing Dow’s inaugural green finance framework in January 2024. The framework outlines Dow’s projects related to climate protection, the circular economy, and safer materials, including Path2Zero.

According to the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), SMBC was one of North America’s top lenders of sustainable loans in 2024. For example, SMBC structured and executed a green loan for Twelve, a startup company that develops sustainable aviation fuel. The funds will be used to design, develop, and construct a green fuel production facility in Moses Lake, Washington.

In March 2024, Canadian nuclear power operator Bruce Power issued a 600 million Canadian dollar (about $420 million) green bond. Scotiabank was joint bookrunner to the transaction, which was the bank’s first issuance under its updated Green Financing Framework—where nuclear energy is now a category for use of proceeds to aid in the decarbonization of the power sector.

In 2021, Bruce Power was the world’s first nuclear power operator to issue a green bond. Since then, it has issued 1.7 billion Canadian dollars in green bonds through three offerings.

While based in Canada, Scotia operates globally, including emerging markets. In Latin America, the bank is a leading bookrunner, with more than a 15% market share in sustainable bonds, according to Bloomberg. It often supports innovative projects. For example, in November 2024, Scotia was the joint bookrunner for Mexico’s first blue bond, to support sustainable fishing and aquaculture.

Elsewhere, Scotia has excelled in sustainability bonds, which have green and social features. In 2024, it issued 24 sustainability bonds with a volume of $28.2 billion, accounting for 7.5% of Scotia’s overall bond volume.

According to LSEG data, Scotia is also a top 15 (global) bookrunner in sustainable loans. In 2024, it was a co-sustainability structuring agent for Lundin Mining’s inaugural $2.55 billion sustainability-linked loan, with an interest rate tied to the mining company’s performance in environmental stewardship and local community engagement.

CIBC advised the Government of Canada on its updated Green Bond Framework, which now includes nuclear power as an eligible use of proceeds. This was in effect for Canada’s second green bond issuance, for 4 billion Canadian dollars in February 2024, reopened for a follow-up 2 billion Canadian dollars in October.

The bank was also the joint bookrunner on several corporate and sovereign green and sustainable issuances within Canada in 2024, including the Province of Ontario’s 1.5 billion Canadian dollar green bond in March, and Ontario Power Generation’s $1 billion Canadian dollar green medium-term notes in June.

The bank is mindful about the communities it serves. In 2024, CIBC developed partnerships with six First Nations across Canada with total authorized lending of 34.5 million Canadian dollars for housing loans. CIBC Capital Markets also acted as joint bookrunner, co-lead arranger, and co-social coordinator in Exchange Income Corporation’s 200 million Canadian dollar social loan to finance aircraft purchase for medevac operations across British Columbia, including services for remote, rural, and Indigenous communities. Supporting communities extends to the US as well. In 2024, CIBC financed projects totaling $123 million, resulting in 500 units of affordable housing in low- and moderate-income communities across the US.

That said, that activity in impact bonds (sometimes called “GSS+” bonds: green, social, sustainability, etc., sustainability-linked instruments) was “sharply lower than the record $594 billion logged in 2021,” the bond-rating agency notes. However, many expect the EU’s new Green Bond Regulation to boost green bond issuance eventually.

“The implementation of the voluntary European green bond standard in December 2024 may support growth over time as existing issuers redraft their frameworks,” Moody’s posted on its website, “but we expect uptake to be modest at first as issuers navigate a new regulatory paradigm.”

Green bonds account for about two-thirds of Western Europe’s sustainable bond issuance, led by Germany ($63 billion in the first nine months of 2024) and France ($41 billion).

Elsewhere, EU countries will need to ramp up their investment in energy storage this year, as price volatility has increased massively. This is “putting huge strain on grids, developers of renewable energy, and power consumers,” says Gregor Vulturius, lead scientist and senior adviser on climate and sustainable finance at SEB.

Moody’s predicts that Europe will continue to lead sustainable finance in 2025, as it has every year since 2017, but any gains are likely to be single digits at best.

A perennial top-10 sustainable bond bookrunner, Societe Generale (SocGen) made a mark in impact investing in July 2024 when it announced it was acquiring a majority stake in Reed Management. This asset management company supports equity investments in emerging leaders of the energy transition. SocGen has committed to investing €250 million ($259 million) as an anchor investor in the inaugural fund.

SocGen further burnished its credentials as a sustainable finance innovator in 2024. It helped create for Dutch-Belgian grocery retailer Ahold Delhaize a unique bond structure with elements of conventional, green, and sustainability-linked bonds to help curb that company’s Scope 3 emissions—those problematic direct and indirect emissions occurring all the way down its value chain. The €1.6 billion bond issued in March 2024, included a €400 million two-year floating-rate tranche, a €500 million seven-year green tranche, and a €700 million 12-year sustainability-linked tranche—the last tranche dealing with Scope 3 emissions as well as Scope 1 and Scope 2 gases. SocGen was the deal’s joint structuring bank.

The bank continues to develop sustainable finance solutions for emerging markets. It had four sustainable bond offerings in Uzbekistan alone in 2024, including a $400 million sustainable bond for Uzpromstroybank and a $400 million green bond for Agrobank, the first green bond ever from a financial institution out of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

As noted in the global awards section, Nordea was the sole sustainability structuring adviser in Finnish company Valmet’s inaugural €200 million green bond offering. Valmet supplies technologies, automation, and services to the pulp, paper, and energy industries. The bond’s proceeds will support Valmet’s clients in their efforts at decarbonization and circular economy in the hard-to-abate pulp and paper manufacturing sector.

A sustainable finance innovator, Nordea remains the largest issuer of sustainability-linked loan bonds, (SLLBs), which it pioneered in 2022. SLLBs use standard use-of-proceeds bonds to fund portfolios of sustainability-linked loans, combining aspects of sustainable bonds and loans. The bank issued its third SLLB in the third quarter of 2024.

Nordea is the Nordic region’s top purveyor of sustainable loans, maintaining a 15.4% market share in the four quarters through the third quarter of 2024. Green loans were particularly strong during this period, increasing 13% over 2023.

More than most, Nordea is aware of the challenges of building a circular economy based on reducing, reusing, and recycling materials. One key problem is that the cost of extracting virgin materials is often much lower than the cost of recycling used materials. Thus, “the circular solutions must be economically sustainable to initiate the transition to a circular economy,” says Thina Saltvedt, chief analyst in Nordea’s Group Sustainability division.

ING backs sustainable infrastructure projects worldwide; but in 2024, southern Germany hosted a different kind of geothermal project. ING was the sole sustainability coordinator for a €131.6 million green loan to Eavor Erdwarme Geretsried, which implemented a project that does not pump subterranean water to the surface to capture heat, as with conventional geothermal projects.

Instead, underground loops resembling giant underground radiators are created at a depth of around 3 miles and then filled with fluid. The underground rock heats the liquid that rises to the surface solely due to the temperature difference. This requires no further energy input and reduces operating costs, and it can be directly used for district heating and power generation.

The bank was a global top-15 ESG-related lender in 2024, according to LSEG. ING was also the sole sustainability coordinator for a €674 million green revolving credit facility (RCF) for Recurrent Energy, a solar power and energy storage project developer. The RCF will support the building out of roughly 1 gigawatt of solar storage capacity. The bank also acted as sole green adviser for Eurostar Group’s €650 million green loan with a €100 green revolving credit facility in April 2024. The high-speed train operator’s loan is the first refinancing with a “green pure player” structure in the European transport sector.

In September 2024, CaixaBank closed its sixth social bond issue, for a total €1.25 billion, with demand exceeding €4.7 billion. Proceeds are to finance activities to fight poverty and foster economic and social development in some of the most disadvantaged areas of Spain. This issue marks the first time CaixaBank has identified eligible projects focused on “gender equality, inequality reduction, and social housing.”

Since the publication in 2020 of the UN’s framework for issuing bonds linked to its Sustainable Development Goals, CaixaBank has become a leader in bond issuances based on ESG criteria in Europe, with 14 issuances: eight green bonds and six social bonds, totaling €13.3 billion.

As Europe’s leading provider of microcredits, the bank strongly supports local communities. Caixa’s social bank, called MicroBank, issued more than 175,000 microcredits in the first nine months of 2024, helping to create an estimated 27,000 jobs. The bank also provides social financing to the public sector, like its 2024 loan to the community of Madrid to finance projects linked to affordable housing, education, health, and social and economic inclusion.

A leader in alternative investing, LGT began embedding sustainability-oriented clauses in its investment programs decades ago. The Liechtenstein-based private bank specifically publishes the extent to which its investments meet sustainability criteria.

The bank uses key criteria to assess a company’s sustainability  rating: whether there are any negative issues or news related to the company, how sustainably the company runs its business, and an assessment of the environmental and social impacts of its offerings. For instance, it might look at the greenhouse gas emissions of the restaurant chain McDonald’s and its labor conditions. In 2024, LGT launched a new share class for its most extensive core investing offering, Princely Strategy or Global Investable Markets, which takes the additional step of purchasing carbon credits.

Global Finance: Your portfolio is broad—at any given time your work can focus on corporate M&A, international asset tracing and recovery, or sanctions compliance. Much of it involves uncovering hidden wealth. How does one hide assets?

Sam Taylor: It’s complex. One can use another person to hold assets on your behalf, and then obfuscate any connection you have to that person. But that raises trust issues. Once you create a bank account and it’s in the name of someone else, they now have legal control over it and could do anything to it. Another way is through layering—creating layers and layers of shell companies, many of them incorporated and established across jurisdictions that are not transparent.

GF: What’s your take on cryptocurrencies?

Taylor: Cryptocurrencies are risky, but they are another effective way to hide assets. Currency can be transferred completely hidden from the traditional banking system. It’s made things more difficult from an asset tracing perspective. However, we’ve developed strategies to work around the inherent challenges, that combine bespoke tools with a great deal of domain expertise.”

GF: And hard assets?

Taylor: We come up against hard assets a lot. We had a project years ago where we identified a yacht owned by someone whose assets we were pursuing on behalf of a claimant. Their child had posted a photo on Instagram of a party on said yacht. We were able to track the flag of the yacht and then reverse engineer from where the ship was registered back to our subject.

GF:  It seems corporate investigations have greatly expanded. Is there just more fraud and misbehavior out there?

Taylor: It absolutely is expanding. The internet, digitalization, globalization—all these things converged in the early 2000s, and the world became ‘flatter’. In the 1970s or 1980s the investors you dealt with might be from Ohio or upstate New York, now they’re often coming from places like the Gulf or Southeast Asia. We have more complex cross-border disputes.

GF: We’re seeing more geopolitical polarization these days, too. Is that making your work more difficult? The Assad’s family’s hidden wealth has been in the news. Will it be more difficult uncovering those assets today than it would 10 years ago, say?

Taylor: Ten years ago, it may have been easier. In the past decade sophisticated players have become much better at obfuscating their assets. People were more careless earlier. Social media was less locked down. We were sometimes able to find assets because someone thoughtlessly posted a piece on social media. People absconding with assets are savvier today.

There are more tools now. You’ve heard about Pegasus and some of the other kinds of spyware that’s going around the world. It almost seems that we’re in an era where technology has been adapted for the powerful and those trying to stay hidden —to counteract what was a wave of openness of the internet.

That said, there’s also new tools that we have. While the Corporate Transparency Act in the US is currently paused in terms of its application, Europe now has similar laws that require companies to disclose beneficial ownership information. Maritime records are now much more available (should transponders not be turned off on ships). There’s a lot of data out there for us to interrogate. So, it’s hard to know where to come down on in terms of a macro position as to who’s winning and who’s losing. I would just say that both sides are more armed and the cat and mouse game continues.

GF: Do cultural differences shape your investigative approaches in corporate intelligence?

Taylor: Absolutely. In the US we can often operate by phone or by email. There’s a basic trust about business and the US has a long commercial history. People are more willing to speak with you. That’s often flipped around in the developing world. There isn’t always a deep well of public records, or easily obtainable information. You really need to rely on well-placed sources.

Timing is an issue too. A US-based investor client wants to close something in one or two weeks. But if we’re gathering intelligence in a place like Brazil, things may not happen so fast. Try doing Brazil in the second half of February or the early half of March during Carnival. Same with the Middle East or Asia during some holiday periods.

GF: Many believe the incoming Trump Administration will deregulate many government agencies. Will that lower demand for your services?

Taylor: Shifting administrations means shifting priorities. I certainly understand that and I’m concerned about the potential effects to the business from reduced regulatory enforcement, particularly at the US Securities & Exchange Commission. But my gut feeling is not to overreact or panic. When one door closes, another opens. It’s possible that the president might be stronger in terms of enforcing some laws against countries not viewed as friendly, or take other retaliatory measures.

GF: What are some of the biggest governance mistakes that your ‘targets’ make?

Taylor: Undisclosed interests come up quite a bit, particularly in cross-border work—places like Mexico, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East. Maybe a relative of an executive at a company is a minister of government and that wasn’t disclosed.

GF: To return to cryptocurrencies, you were quoted last year with regard to the FTX cryptocurrency exchange collapse, words to the effect that from that scandal a stronger, healthier crypto market might emerge. Do you still feel that way, especially in light of the recent meme-coin hype?

Taylor: Regarding FTX, maybe I was too optimistic. It was an opportunity to really clean up that space. Look, there is value in having a decentralized ledger technology. I get that. I don’t see the value in the number of different coins, the amount of speculation, or the fraud that has occurred, however. There was an opportunity for that entire industry to step up and make important changes and work with the government to create good regulation and legislation to enforce it. It hasn’t happened. 

GF: Do you accept work on behalf of governments?

Taylor: Yes, but anything that we would do for a government would first be elevated to our risk committee, and it would be assessed for legal risks, conflicts of interest, as well as reputational risk. I would add that this does not encompass a broad swath of our business, but we have done so and we would do so again depending on the mandate and depending on the government client.

GF: A recent study showed that most of the 40,000 mergers and acquisitions deals of the past 40 years failed. That’s often because the parties were fed partial or faulty information. Would more of those transactions have succeeded if those deals had been better scrutinized?

Taylor: When firms like ours are engaged, we’re likely to find information that’s going to be relevant. It might even be information that could kill a deal. We can raise serious risk concerns about a transaction, but people might still go ahead and do the deal anyway, especially if the market is frothy. The nature of information has changed in the past ten years. Everyone is being armed to the hilt with as much information as they can gather. But outcomes still depend on someone using the information provided, and that often has a lot to do with market sentiment.     

Catastrophic weather events, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, trade conflicts, global pandemics—the forces disrupting supply chains are multiplying at a rate few could have anticipated.

Since Covid-19 swept the globe, risks have spiraled, forcing governments, industry groups, nongovernmental organizations, and corporate CEOs and CFOs to rethink supply networks from the ground up. And the current threats show no sign of slowing.

As global supply chains brace for escalating tariffs, rising shipping costs, and an expanding regulatory landscape, companies are scrambling to adapt to demands for greener, more-resilient networks. Technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed ledger technology (DLT) are bringing new tools to bear, but the fundamental challenges and growing fragility of globalization will remain, experts tell Global Finance.

“We’re certainly in a new era of global supply chains, but it’s not that today’s risks were entirely unseen before,” says Tinglong Dai, professor of Operations Management and Business Analytics at Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School.

Extreme weather has always been a threat, but its frequency and intensity are now unparalleled, Dai says. Similarly, risks such as the Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping have increased.

“The real shift,” Dai explains, “is in our recognition that the global supply chain model of the past 30 years is no longer sustainable, especially in light of new geopolitical realities. The US can no longer count on a China-centric supply chain structure to operate smoothly. We’re moving toward what I would call a ‘Supply Chain Iron Curtain.’”

“The world has very much changed, and the risks of global manufacturing and transportation have increased tremendously,” says Zach Zacharia, associate professor of supply chain management and director of the Center for Supply Chain Research at Lehigh University’s College of Business. “The large shipping lines are all not going through the Red Sea, and again that has changed the cost and time required to transport goods.”

Events have forced companies to look more closely at shipping costs. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine dealt a blow to globalization, Zacharia continues. Before, it made sense to produce something at the lowest cost and then efficiently transport it.

“However, once Ukraine was attacked and Covid happened, you had to look at not just producing it cheaply but transporting it back safely at a low cost, which became much more critical,” he says.

“We do see more volatility in maritime supply chains,” says Jan Hoffmann, head of trade logistics at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). It hasn’t helped that “key chokepoints like the Suez and Panama canals are increasingly vulnerable to geopolitical tensions, conflicts and climate change,” as UNCTAD states in its Review of Maritime Transport 2024, published in September.

Tariffs could soon be a complicating factor, as US President-elect Donald Trump has stated his intention to expand their use. Tariffs were a big issue in the recent US presidential campaign but are viewed by many as a lose-lose strategy. They don’t really make sense, because tariffs invariably provoke retaliatory tariffs, cautions Zacharia. Still, they seem likely to proliferate in the current geopolitical climate.

“A surge in trade conflicts, and especially between the USA and China, is altering traditional trade flows between these leading trade partners,” says Rouben Indjikian, a professor at Webster University in Geneva and former executive director of Global Commodities Forum at UNCTAD. One recent example: China gets soya beans from Brazil at the expense of its traditional supplier, the US.

Elsewhere, globalization itself has brought a certain amount of “just-in-time fragility,” says Evan Smith, co-founder and CEO at Altana AI. Boeing, for example, used to control most of the value chain in the manufacture of its aircraft. “Today it’s doing only the final assembly of its planes,” says Smith.

This means that if there is an interruption, for whatever reason, in deliveries of parts such as seats and engines from one or more upstream suppliers, the entire production line may have to shut down, as happened to Boeing in July.

“This outsourced, … efficiency-at-all-costs supply chain [favored by so many companies] is efficient only under conditions of stability,” which is not what we have today, Smith explains.

Companies and organizations need to embrace a diversified strategy that includes reshoring, nearshoring, and friendshoring, says Dai. “It’s not just about bringing production back to the US. That alone won’t shield companies from risks, particularly those driven by climate change,” he argues. “We need to diversify not only across regions within the US but also by collaborating with allies and neighboring countries.”

Some have already traversed this path. “Apple has been quite successful in de-risking its global supply chain. They’ve built in significant optionality and resilience, taking concrete steps to reduce reliance on any single country or region,” says Dai.

For corporations, managing their supply chains could get more complex—and expensive—given the current global regulatory climate. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence directive is already in force for some companies, yet only 9% of respondents in McKinsey’s 2024 Global Supply Chain Leader Survey say that their supply chains are currently compliant with the new rules, which impose human rights and environmental due diligence requirements on large EU companies and on large non-EU companies operating in the EU.

UNCTAD recognizes that “rapid decarbonization is critical” regarding global supply chains, yet “the transition to greener ships and low carbon fuels is still in its early stages.”

“There has been a big sea change in regulation,” comments Smith. Governments now insist that companies be aware of what is happening across their supply chains to a degree not seen before.

The US Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which was signed into law at the end of 2021, requires companies to take steps to prevent forced labor in their supply chains. The US Customs and Border Protection agency requires that all companies whose supply chains draw upon China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have to undertake and document extensive “due diligence measures to ensure compliance with US laws and trace their supply chains for potential exposure to forced labor.”

This isn’t always easy. A large US apparel firm might know who is manufacturing its garments, and the origins of the textiles used in that process, but may not have knowledge about the cotton that goes into those textiles. Today the apparel firm must ensure that forced labor isn’t being used to pick the cotton that will be spun and woven into textiles and fashioned into clothes that will appear on US retail store shelves, says Smith.

In this increasingly volatile supply risk environment, how does a company or organization mitigate these risks? Can emerging technologies, particularly AI, provide support?

More companies are now tapping into giant supply chain datasets and using machine learning algorithms to apply predictive analytics, “allowing for very fast decision-making and mitigation of supply risks before they arise,” says Peter Liddell, Global Operations Center of Excellence lead and Global Sustainable Supply Chain lead at KPMG Services in Singapore.

“Embracing AI is a high priority right now for global supply chain leaders across all industries and all jurisdictions,” he continues. In KPMG’s 2024 CEO Outlook, which surveyed 1,325 CEOs surveyed worldwide, supply chain disruption was rated a top threat to business growth.

By comparison, supply chain risk ranked only fifth in KPMG’s 2022 survey. Importantly, Liddell notes, “64% of global CEOs surveyed indicated that they would invest in AI regardless of the economic conditions.”

Many organizations are already using AI-based tools to improve supply chain “visibility”; that is, the ability to track and monitor the movement of products and information throughout the supply network. Of supply chain leaders surveyed in the McKinsey report, 55% said they were using AI for this purpose, making it the technology’s most common use case. And this rate of AI usage backs up the increasing complexity of supply chains, as the survey also reports that “the share of respondents who say that they have good visibility into deeper levels of the supply chain fell by seven percentage points, the second consecutive annual decline in this measure.”

Where AI could prove really useful, though, according to Shawn Fitzgerald, senior research director at a strategic consulting firm, is in developing “what if” scenarios.

Using AI-enhanced predictive analytics to “game out” scenarios beforehand can vastly improve logistics, Fitzgerald suggests. A manager would ask the algorithm, for example, whether it is safer and more efficient to transport goods by air or by water.

Sustainability is a growing concern of governments, and supply chains can expect to come under more pressure to ensure that they are part of the solution, not the problem. Tracking every step in the supply chain process could eventually be a corporate imperative. If so, DLT may prove a useful tool, according to Liddell.

“The ability offered by DLTs for data visibility, to trace every transaction, and to identify the actors involved can enhance the reliability and accuracy of product traceability and tracking, especially in times of greater geopolitical uncertainty and as concerns over trading partners begin to grow,” says Liddell.

“Visibility and traceability are two critical requirements for supply chains to enable ESG Scope 3 reporting,” he adds. Those reporting requirements are a part of the international corporate value chain standard and could boost the adoption of DLTs and of blockchain at scale.

Are there concrete steps that all corporate CEOs and CFOs should be taking to make their supply chains safer, considering growing geopolitical risks?

Some supply chain leaders are creating strategies for the next five to 10 years, adopting a greenfield-planning approach, says Liddell—that is, building models from scratch, with a clean slate.

Several organizations are also working on plans to fully automate the supply chain planning function—100% automation—“but this is likely to be far more difficult than many expect,” Liddell comments.

“My view is that organizations want to better understand their own risks, their suppliers’ risks, and their suppliers’ suppliers’ risks, and ask for mitigation plans, but have not significantly increased their own investments in risk mitigation,” says Shawn Muma, director of supply chain innovation and emerging technologies at the Digital Supply Chain Institute, a research organization of the Center for Global Enterprise.

This is the case even as new AI/machine learning tools become available to optimize business decision-making, like optimal machine learning (OML), a process that can handle enormous amounts of past and current supply-and-demand data and make recommendations on such matters as ideal production quantities and the most efficient shipping arrangements, Muma adds.

Digital enterprise resource planning (ERP) software is gaining in popularity among CEOs and CFOs, Webster University’s Indjikian says. ERP permits companies to make supply chain an integral part of the overall planning of production, transportation, and distribution of their goods.

But ERP and digitalization can go only so far. “While digitalization can make early warning systems better, they cannot easily overcome geopolitical risks and especially climate events and their consequences,” notes Indjikian.

“It’s really mostly about diversification,” says UNCTAD’s Hoffmann. “A shipper will try to depend on several carriers, routes, ports, modes of transport, and goods suppliers.”

Companies should also strive to avoid letting supply chains become too deep, with too many levels, leaving them dependent not only on their supplier, but also on the supplier of their supplier and so on.

Overall, supply chain management must be valued by corporate boards and top-level management as no longer a mere back office, logistics type of job, a matter of making sure that goods show up on time in the most cost-efficient way, Altana AI’s Smith argues.

Companies will have to raise supply chain management to an executive-level priority, suggests Fitzgerald. They will need to hire and retain the right talent, invest in ongoing training, and “ensure there is a career track for supply chain professionals to advance and partner with the business over time.”