Green banking practices worldwide: prospects for Kazakhstan

Abstract

Object: The article aims to explore the concept of "green banks" and review current worldwide developments in green banking with the emphasis on the Republic of Kazakhstan.Methods: Qualitative research methods: content analysis, abstraction, comparison, and generalization.Results: The paper explores definitions of "green banking" and categorization of green banking practices. Some of the popular internal and external green banking activities are discussed. The authors found out that currently there is a global trend towards greening the banking sector. However, the scope of available green banking practices varies considerably across different countries and banks. The proposed greenness scale can be used to estimate banks' activities from "slightly green" to "fully green banks".Conclusions: While green bonds and green loans are widely discussed in the literature, the topic of green banking is mostly ignored. Since the Republic of Kazakhstan has stepped towards Green Economy, the prospects of green banking should not be neglected. To conform with sustainable development, commercial banks should engage in internal and external green banking practices. Government and responsible agencies (i.e., AIFC) should work closely with the commercial banks in the greening process.

Green banking laws and regulations in Mauritius: a comparative study with other countries’ policies

“…External activities would include the banks providing and encouraging the use of financial green products. Birzhanova (2023) further highlighted the categorisation of green banking in four parts that involve: green retail banking, green corporate banking, green asset management and green insurance. Green retail banking includes the provision of green loans, green mortgages to customers and green corporate banking involves banks engaging in checking their clients' impact on the environment, financing green projects and providing green securities.…”

“…These include employer-related, customer-related, daily-operations-related and bank-policy-related practices. The employer-related practices include educating bank workers about environmental issues and encouraging green behaviour through rewards (Birzhanova, 2023) while customer-related practices involve offering green products or services such as green loans. On the other side, daily-operations-related practices include inculcating green practices into the bank's daily activities such as a restricted usage of paper and moving to online banking instead.…”