Sustainability and Green Bond Frameworks
On April 2020, National Bank of Greece S.A. ("the Bank") published its Green Bond Framework (“GBF”) identifying eligible assets of renewable energy projects that can be designated to the use of proceeds of a Green issue.
The Bank selected and engaged Sustainalytics to provide a second party opinion on its GBF. Sustainalytics concluded that the Bank’s GBF is in alignment with the four core components of the International Capital Market Association’s (“ICMA”) Green Bond Principles 2018.
On Thursday, 1st October 2020, the Bank successfully completed the placement of the first Green senior bond from a Greek bank, totaling €500 million with a coupon of 2.750% and a yield of 2.875%, under its GBF. According to ICMA principles for green bonds, based on which the transactions was issued, the Bank is contractually committed to channeling all the funds raised from the sale of the bond to financing projects related to the green economy.