Action plan for the future of sustainable finance

The Swiss financial centre wants to be a leader in sustainable finance, and the Swiss Bankers Association and its members have developed a decisive action plan to this end. We aim to lay a strong foundation for further growth.

Shaping the future requires ambition. The Swiss financial centre has already made good progress in terms of sustainable finance over the past few years and intends to build on this going forward. Sustainable finance is an attractive field of business that seeks to direct financial flows towards sustainable and environmentally friendly activities in response to steadily growing customer demand.

This presents the banks in Switzerland with a great opportunity to draw in assets from customers all over the world through advisory services and products of excellent quality in this field.

To take the next step together, we have drawn up specific measures that will now be put into practice:

Liberal self-regulation: The SBA’s new self-regulation defines a minimum standard for its members and makes them more competitive and more credible by guaranteeing high-quality advice for customers. We are working with our members to draw up binding rules concerning advisory processes in relation to investments and financing. As far as the sustainability of financial products is concerned, we support the standards defined by the Asset Management Association Switzerland.

Net-zero initiatives: We regard net-zero initiatives as an effective instrument for achieving the climate goals set for 2050 and recommend that our members sign up to international net-zero alliances and sustainability initiatives in the banking industry. The SBA itself also aims to become a supporting institution of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance.

Education: The SBA and the banks systematically integrate environmental, social and governance (ESG) know-how into their education and further training. We have set ourselves the goal of ensuring that all advisors have a sufficient understanding of ESG issues and apply it successfully in the advisory process with their customers.

The action plan is admittedly ambitious in its scope, which makes it all the more important for us to formulate clear goals and requirements and foster intensive competition, in order to realise our vision of becoming the leading financial centre for sustainable investments and finance.