Maria Loumioti
- 18 December 2023
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2882Details
- Abstract
- Using confidential information on banks’ portfolios, inaccessible to market participants, we show that banks that emphasize the environment in their disclosures extend a higher volume of credit to brown borrowers, without charging higher interest rates or shortening debt maturity. These results cannot be attributed to the financing of borrowers’ transition towards greener technologies and are robust to controlling for banks’ climate risk discussions. Examining the mechanisms behind the strategic disclosure choices, we highlight that banks are hesitant to sever ties with existing brown borrowers, especially if they exhibit financial underperformance.
- JEL Code
- G11 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→Portfolio Choice, Investment Decisions
G15 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→International Financial Markets
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
- 6 December 2023
- THE ECB BLOGBanks are talking more about the environment. But does such talk go hand in hand with greener lending? The ECB Blog finds a disconnect: banks talking more about their environmental policies and goals tend to lend more to brown industries.Details
- JEL Code
- G11 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→Portfolio Choice, Investment Decisions
G15 : Financial Economics→General Financial Markets→International Financial Markets
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
- 24 January 2020
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2367Details
- Abstract
- We explore whether the transparency in banks’ lending activities enhances the harmonization of credit terms that a bank offers across its different geographic regions. We take advantage of a novel loan-level reporting initiative by the European Central Bank, which requires repo borrowing banks that pledge their asset-backed securities as collateral to disclose granular information on loan characteristics and performance. We find that loans originated under the transparency regime share more similar interest rate, loan-to-collateral-value ratio and maturity compared to same-purpose loans issued by the same bank in different regions. Underperforming regional branches and those with less easily accessible peer-branches experience greater convergence in their credit terms, suggesting that transparency facilitates learning across a bank’s different geographic regions. Additionally, banks that face stronger regulatory scrutiny are more likely to alleviate credit term disparities under the transparency regime. Overall, our findings suggest that transparency enhances the within-bank harmonization of lending practices.
- JEL Code
- M41 : Business Administration and Business Economics, Marketing, Accounting→Accounting and Auditing→Accounting
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
D83 : Microeconomics→Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty→Search, Learning, Information and Knowledge, Communication, Belief - Network
- ECB Lamfalussy Fellowship Programme