Awards for Excellence 2016
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Yes Bank’s philanthropic activities in Asia may not have the scale of some regional banks. But here we reward the efforts and ambitions of a smaller Indian bank, in a market not always known for sustainability and good governance.
Our award is triggered by two things. Just 12 years old, Yes Bank has sought from the outset to build principles of sustainable, inclusive and responsible banking. The clearest evidence of this in practice has been its leadership position in green energy finance. Shortly before our review period, in February 2015 Yes Bank issued India’s first green infrastructure bonds, to fund renewable energy projects; during our review period it follow up by raising Rs3.15 billion ($47 million) through a further issue of these bonds to the IFC, a private placement that represented the first ever investments by the IFC in an emerging markets green bond issue.
Yes Bank picked an opportune moment to do it, catching a brief (very brief, as it turned out) window of momentum towards masala bonds, listed on the London Stock Exchange, where the bonds now trade. It will use the money in solar, wind, biomass and other renewable projects. The bank now has one of the largest clean energy finance portfolios in the Indian private sector.
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Rana Kapoor, |
It has committed to mobilizing $5 billion towards climate finance in India by 2020, as well as planting 2 million saplings and improving clean drinking water for 100 million people. Crucially, it has sought out best practices for self-monitoring, and uses environmental and social policies sourced from the Equator Principles and the IFC.
The other reason for the award is the bank’s work in the vital field of inclusive finance. “Financial exclusion is the biggest challenge of developing India,” says Rana Kapoor, founder and CEO at Yes Bank. “A mere stripping down of conventional products and services doesn’t work for the bottom of the pyramid, as their needs are distinctively different than for conventional banking customers.”
The bank talks of reaching out to ‘the next billion’ customers and has a programme called Frugal Innovations for Financial Inclusion, such as mobile banking technology for financially excluded populations in rural India. It also runs a programme called Yes Leap to offer financial services to this bottom-of-the-pyramid market, largely a self-help guidance approach that now reaches 1.9 million households across 19 Indian states. The Asian Development Bank has been impressed enough to lend $200 million to the bank to increase the project.
