Giovanni Covi, James Brookes and Charumathi Raja

Local weather transition will undoubtedly expose UK banks to new dangers and alternatives. Therefore, we quantify the UK banking sector’s share of complete property allotted in the direction of local weather coverage related sectors (CPRS). Utilizing The World Community knowledge set mapping the community of UK banks’ mortgage and safety exposures, we discover that the UK banking system’s direct CPRS exposures quantity as much as 6.1% of complete property, or 45.7% of non-financial company (NFC) exposures. When contemplating additionally oblique CPRS exposures in the direction of different monetary corporates, the share of complete property topic to CPRS classification will increase as much as 10%. Whereas 83% of those property are tied up in carbon-intensive sectors, 17% will probably profit from local weather transition plans. We don’t measure exposures topic to climate-related bodily dangers.
Local weather-related transition danger and alternatives
In its first progress report, launched in October 2018, the Community for Greening the Monetary System (NGFS) unanimously concluded that ‘climate-related dangers are a supply of monetary dangers’. Central banks and monetary regulators want to make sure that the monetary system is resilient to those dangers.
In doing so, they need to set key priorities to assemble a framework to evaluate and probably curb climate-related monetary dangers. In accordance with NGFS, the important thing activity in reaching this goal is the disclosure of present exposures within the monetary sector – in different phrases, the creation of a danger map of climate-related monetary dangers.
Nonetheless, the transition in the direction of a climate-friendly productive financial system won’t solely go by means of dangers, but in addition alternatives. Subsequently, assessing the trade-off between dangers and alternatives is essential to offering a holistic evaluation on the way forward for the monetary system’s resilience.
Local weather coverage related sectors and the Taxonomy Alignment Coefficient
We observe Battiston et al (2017) in classifying financial actions into CPRS. This strategy permits us to evaluate the financial and monetary danger and alternatives that companies might expertise given a local weather transition, that’s, an financial system reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 as specified within the Paris Settlement. CPRS have been labeled by utilizing three principal standards: (i) their direct and oblique contribution to greenhouse gasoline emissions; (ii) their relevance for local weather coverage implementation; and (iii) their function within the vitality worth chain. The place to begin for this classification is the four-digit NACE classification of financial actions, which is mapped into six principal local weather coverage related sectors – fossil fuels, utilities, vitality intensive, buildings, transportation and agriculture. The CPRS classification is considered a reference for local weather monetary danger evaluation.
Then again, to differentiate local weather transition dangers from local weather transition alternatives, we make use of the Taxonomy Alignment Coefficient (TAC) methodology developed by Alessi et al (2019) to quantify the share of banks’ CPRS exposures that could possibly be recognized as ‘inexperienced sectors’, ie these benefiting from the local weather transition.
Massive granular knowledge units
To calculate the UK banking system’s publicity to CPRSs, we use the World Community knowledge set, protecting the UK banking system’s property utilizing a granular strategy. This knowledge set is made up of six supervisory knowledge sources protecting mortgage, debt and fairness safety exposures in addition to derivatives exposures. In complete, the World Community captures £9.4 trillion of gross exposures out of £10.6 trillion of complete UK property in 2021 This autumn, roughly 90% of UK banking system’s property. The information set is split into two principal units of exposures. The granular part accounts for 43% of complete publicity quantities (£4.1 trillion). When the granular part just isn’t accessible, we add aggregated exposures by the counterparty’s nation and sector because the residual part which contributes to 57% of the whole protection (or £5.3 trillion).
For this particular train (Desk 1), we use mortgage and safety exposures to the NFC sector, to seize the dimensions of CPRS exposures. In 2021 This autumn, we’ve £1,200 billion UK banks’ exposures, of which 37% of NFC exposures are mapped with granular bank-to-counterparty data. The counterparty identification through Authorized Entity Identifiers permits us to affiliate every counterparty with a four-digit NACE code and in flip with a CPRS classification. We additional decompose the exposures into loans and securities. The residual part (63% or £757 billion) has been mapped with aggregated exposures by nation and sector of the counterparty and this classification shall be used to estimate complete CPRS exposures.
Desk 1: UK Banks’ exposures to non-financial company sector (£ billions)

Direct and oblique CPRS exposures
For 2021 This autumn, we calculate that out of £444 billion of granular exposures in the direction of the NFC sector, virtually £201 billion had been directed in the direction of CPRSs (45%) (Desk 2). On this respect, 83% are more likely to be topic to local weather transition danger (RISK CPRS), whereas 17% are more likely to profit (TAC CPRS) from the local weather transition. General, wanting on the composition of CPRS sectors, the ‘Buildings’ sector is probably the most related CPRS part, accounting for £82.5 billion of complete CPRS granular exposures, out of which £55.5 billion is topic to transition danger, and £27 billion to transition alternatives. The second most related CPRS sector is ‘Fossil Fuels’ with £38.1 billion, adopted by ‘Transport’ with £37.7 billion, out of which £32.8 billion topic to transition danger, and £4.9 billion to transition alternatives and ‘Power Intensive’ with £31.3 billion.
Desk 2: UK Banks’ exposures to local weather coverage related sectors (£ billions)

We additionally estimate CPRS exposures for the aggregated publicity part, taking as reference the share of CPRS exposures calculated on the granular part for loans and securities. Desk 3 supplies the whole quantity of CPRS exposures (calculated and estimated) for the UK banking sector.
We discover that the UK banking system was uncovered in 2021 This autumn to £546 billion of CPRS exposures, that’s, for six.1% of complete property, or 45.7% of complete NFC exposures. On this respect, Desk 3 additionally supplies a comparability with different research within the literature utilizing the identical CPRS methodology, ie EU banking system, EU insurance coverage companies and Austrian banking system. In an effort to evaluate the outcomes with the EU banking system, we acquire proof from EBA (2021) train on EU banks’ mortgage exposures and from Alessi et al (2019) for EU banks’ safety exposures. The protection of the 2 knowledge samples just isn’t similar. The EBA (2021) train covers all EU-27 nations plus Norway and the UK, however focuses solely on a subsample of banks which account for 50% of EU banks’ exposures. On this respect, we rescale all estimates offered by EBA (2021) by an element of two, thereby assuming that the share of CPRS exposures stays fixed as estimated for the UK banks on mixture publicity quantities. In distinction, Alessi et al (2019)’s train excludes safety exposures from UK banks. On this respect, we increase their estimates with our CPRS estimates on UK banks’ safety exposures. General, in comparison with the UK banking sector, the EU banking sector’s share of complete property uncovered to CPRSs is comparatively larger, shut to eight.5%.
Desk 3: UK banks’ complete CPRS exposures

We must always nevertheless notice that these estimates seize solely direct exposures in the direction of the non-financial company sector, which solely account for 13% of complete UK banks’ exposures. The opposite £3,700 billion or 39% of complete exposures are directed in the direction of different credit score establishments and non-bank monetary entities, which fall exterior the scope of the CPRS classification. Therefore, it’s essential to know the share of CPRS exposures the monetary sector holds as a way to derive additionally an oblique measure of CPRS exposures.
On this respect, by making use of the World Community knowledge set, we’re in a position to quantify £528 billion of exposures in the direction of EU banks and an extra £314 billion of exposures in the direction of EU non-bank monetary companies. By weighting the previous by 8.5% and the latter by 13%, respectively the CPRS share over complete property of EU banks and EU insurers, we derive an extra £45 billion and £41 billion of oblique CPRS exposures for the UK banking sectors, resulting in a complete (direct CPRS plus oblique CPRS) of £632 billion or 7% of complete property. In the long run by assuming a ten% CPRS share for the remaining £2,858 billion of UK banks’ exposures in the direction of monetary sector entities, we find yourself with a complete of £918 billion of CPRS exposures or 10% of complete property.
Conclusions and coverage implications
Local weather transition plans carry with it dangers and alternatives for the monetary system that central banks must be alert to. Certainly, there’s a urgent want for central banks, regulators and monetary companies to speed up their capability to evaluate and handle these dangers as was just lately scoped out by the Financial institution of England’s CBES train.
Complementary to the CBES workouts, we’ve sized UK banks’ direct exposures based on the CPRS classification, which sum as much as 6.1% of UK banks’ complete property in 2021 This autumn. Nonetheless, we’ve highlighted that additionally exposures in the direction of monetary companies incorporate a carbon footprint, and so they symbolize a big chunk of the UK banking sector’s property. On this respect, by contemplating additionally oblique CPRS exposures, UK banks’ complete property exposures to CPRS improve additional to 10%, an extra 40%.
The higher variety of CPRS reference estimates for the monetary sector and subsectors throughout jurisdictions, the higher researchers and policymakers will be capable to estimate oblique monetary CPRS exposures, and so assemble a worldwide map of monetary property topic to climate-related monetary dangers and alternatives. We hope this research might assist to fill this hole.
Giovanni Covi works within the Financial institution’s Stress Testing Technique Division, James Brookes works within the Financial institution’s Superior Analytics Division and Charumathi Raja works within the Financial institution’s Banking Capital Coverage Division.
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