A Saudi lender plugs into global climate metrics
Saudi Awwal Bank (SAB) has joined the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF), an industry-led alliance that helps financial institutions measure and disclose greenhouse gas emissions linked to their lending and investment portfolios. SAB now sits among a global tier of banks and investors embedding financed-emissions data into core decision-making.
For SAB, the alliance offers access to an internationally recognised methodology for assessing financed emissions across relevant portfolios. This should strengthen the bank’s internal climate-risk toolkit, from sectoral credit analysis to portfolio steering. It also aligns SAB’s practices with emerging global norms and expectations from rating agencies and international investors.
The bank framed the step as part of its broader sustainability journey, aligned with Saudi Vision 2030 and the Saudi Green Initiative, which both seek to position the Kingdom for a net-zero future. By joining PCAF, SAB signals that climate metrics are moving from disclosure exercises into mainstream risk management and product structuring in Saudi banking.
Faten Abalkhail, SAB’s Chief Governance and Corporate Affairs Officer, said the bank aims to use financed-emissions data to assess portfolio-level climate exposure and support clients with transition plans, while contributing to Saudi Arabia’s net-zero ambitions. That focus on client support is notable. It links climate accounting directly to relationship banking and advisory, rather than treating it as a standalone ESG function.
Financing transition: green instruments and regional positioning
SAB’s PCAF membership builds on visible activity in Saudi sustainable capital markets, reinforcing its role as an arranger and issuer of labelled instruments that channel capital towards climate-aligned projects. Those activities have helped position the bank as an early mover in structuring products that respond to the Kingdom’s infrastructure and transition needs.
The new step should help SAB tighten the link between its balance-sheet exposures and its sustainable funding activities. With harmonised emissions data, the bank can more easily align green and transition financing structures with portfolio-level decarbonisation pathways. It can also respond to emerging standards such as the Science Based Targets initiative, which recognises the PCAF Global GHG Accounting and Reporting Standard for the Financial Industry.
Saudi Awwal Bank is a systemically important player. It is one of the largest banks in Saudi Arabia, with a history in the market spanning more than 90 years. The bank operates as a leading corporate and institutional international bank with strong wealth and personal banking. It is active in trade finance, foreign exchange, wholesale debt banking, digital services and ESG across Saudi Arabia and the wider region.
Following its merger with Alawwal Bank, the Saudi British Bank later rebranded as Saudi Awwal Bank.
For institutional investors, SAB’s decision to join PCAF highlights how financed-emissions metrics are becoming embedded in the credit culture of Saudi banks, just as domestic sustainable issuance grows. Over the next two to three years, investors should watch how Saudi Awwal Bank PCAF data shapes the bank’s sector lending, future green and transition bond programmes, and alignment with national net-zero and Vision 2030 milestones.
