RAEX-Europe has upgraded MKB’s ESG rating to A[esg]

The International rating agency RAEX-Europe upgraded the ESG rating of Credit Bank of Moscow (MKB) A[esg] by increasing it to 73 points out of 100.

The RAEX-Europe report notes that MKB’s management of ESG related risks and opportunities is of high level, and that the bank performs well with respect to natural resources management. According to the bank’s sustainability report, it has reduced its energy and water consumption and the amount of office waste, in particular thanks to the Paperless Bank project.

MKB was one of the first Russian banks to publish their Sustainable Development Strategy for 2021–2023 and approved ESG KPIs for its top management. 

MKB was also the first Russian bank to publish, on a voluntary basis, an E&S Report under the Equator Principles that discloses the social and environmental risk categories of project finance transactions. The evaluation of the non-project portion of the portfolio has been started.

In addition, MKB has further formalised its S&E assessment processes for borrowers and suppliers, and implemented an internal taxonomy that ensures a classification of projects as "green", "social", "sustainable" and "transition". It has also launched advisory business, having already won some large public biddings for ESG services to corporates.

This year, the annual sustainable development reporting is more informative. For the first time, it was independently assured by an international audit firm, and GHG emissions were measured and disclosed (scope 1 and 2). MKB raised the first-in-Russia international ESG KPI-linked syndicated loan.

Achievements in ESG initiatives implementation have been recognized on the international market. The Bank has became the first financial institution in Russia to raise international ESG KPI-linked syndicated loan.

"Against a backdrop of methodology tend to get more rigorous, rating agency analysts noted the improvement of MKB’s key ESG-indicators: assessment of environmental and social sub-factors were upgraded. These results evidence the bank's ESG transformation goes ahead fast, driven by the ambition to excel in sustainability, and to support ESG progress of its customers," underlined Julia Titova, First Vice President of MKB.