Sustainable Lending: A case study of Swedbank’s lending operations

Abstract

The pressures on organizations to act more sustainable are increasing, and companies have started to implement corporate social responsibility (CSR) into their operations. Until recently, the banking sector was relatively isolated from social and environmental pressures. However, the term sustainable lending has during the recent years become a more general concept in the financial industry. Due to banks’ indirect impact on investments, the banking industry has an important influencing power. Since sustainable lending is relatively new operations in organizations, it is important to understand how the practice will be adopted throughout a multinational company (MNC). In a MNC, this could be studied through institutional and relational differences towards the parent organization. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to create an understanding of how an international bank is affected by institutional and relational differences, with focus on CSR and lending practices. In order to investigate this, a qualitative multiple case study with one of Sweden's international banks has been conducted. The study contributes to the following findings: Limited differences could be found regarding identification, dependence, and regulations. However, the trust in the headquarter (HQ) were found to be higher among the Baltic subsidiaries than the Swedish subsidiaries. Furthermore, normative and cognitive aspects, such as knowledge, personal interests and the employee’s perception of sustainability may affect the sustainability analysis process. These aspects may also affect the quality of the client evaluation, particularly concerning social- and environmental risks.