The competitive advantage and the leading position of Piraeus in market for sustainability-related business loans reinforces the new Sustainability-Linked Loans Framework adopted by the Bank, emphasized Mr. Thanos VlachopoulosHead of Corporate Banking and Products of Piraeus, responsible for Large Financings, in the context of the “Fitch Sustainability ESG Roundtable Athens 2024” organized by Fitch Ratings.

The new framework confirms the Bank’s strategic priority to support sustainability. Already, Piraeus has financed through Sustainability Linked Loans large and medium-sized companies, with a total amount which exceeds €700 million and it has now gone on to create a comprehensive framework that outlines the funding process and describes the methodology for characterizing a business grant as ‘sustainability-related’.

Regarding how difficult and demanding the process of defining the framework was, Mr. Vlachopoulos stated that the greatest difficulty and challenge for the working group was the process of selecting the appropriate ESG indicators and targets as well as the methodology for verifying the achievement of these targets . He even noted that the collaboration with Sustainable Fitch to evaluate the reliability of the framework was constructive and effective and through it Piraeus ensured that the framework follows the best practices of the market and has taken into account the principles described by international organizations.

In question about the level maturity of the Greek market in issues related to sustainabilityMr. Vlachopoulos mentioned that businesses are at different levels of maturity in terms of understanding and adopting ESG criteria in their operations. The differences are spot on not only between different industries and sizes but also between companies in the same industry.

He emphasized thatThe Greek systemic banks have taken important initiatives and actions in relation to ESGwithout always being imposed by the supervisory framework, while they have already taken an active role in educating and guiding their clients in order to adapt their long-term strategy towards a sustainable orientation.