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Becoming a sustainable bank demands a full business transformation to ensure compliance with new regulations, including enhancing their institutional capacity, strategy and policies, and human capacity, among others.

According to the London Institute of Banking & Finance (LIBF) Mena whitepaper, about 80% of business transformation projects in the Middle East banking sector are facing hurdles.

The report also provides insight into the megatrends that banks must navigate in the rapidly changing financial landscape, listing technological change, demographic shifts, urbanization, and climate change, as a few. LIBF highlights the current shift towards environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices as the most important shift banks must make.

LIBF lists three fundamental shifts banks must undertake, which are; upskilling and reskilling staff, putting in place new policies and processes, and adopting new technology.

The report also points out how banking decisions can profoundly impact the economies they serve, highlighting climate change and loss of biodiversity as risk factors that banks must tackle.

The Commercial International Bank Egypt, the First Abu Dhabi Bank, and the Qatar Development Bank are listed as some of the few banks already making advances in sustainability despite local challenges.