Standard Chartered says investor participation in ESG fund sales surges amid climate change focus
- Standard Chartered banker says it is not just the young investors buying ESG funds, investment interest exists across all age groups
- Border reopening helped boost sales of insurance and wealth management products, as 23 million travellers visited the city in the first 10 months
Standard Chartered Bank, one of Hong Kong’s three note-issuing banks, reported a 40 per cent increase in the number of customers buying ESG (environmental, social and governance) funds in the first 10 months of this year, reflecting growing investment interest in products focused on pollution and climate change.
“It is not just the young investors, but we found investors in all age groups are interested in buying our ESG products,” said Alson Ho, Standard Chartered Bank Hong Kong’s head of Wealth Management, at a media briefing on Friday.
“If there are two fund products with similar structure and past performance, investors tend to choose to invest in the fund with an ESG theme and not the one without such features.”
He believes this is a result of ESG advocacy efforts made by many governments and regulators with Standard Chartered itself having promoted ESG investment as a strategy in recent years. Standard Chartered now sells about 90 funds, including those issued by other fund houses, with ESG investment features.
The lender joins another one of Hong Kong’s note-issuing bank Bank of China (Hong Kong), French fund house Amundi and German fund company Allianz Global Investors, in promoting ESG funds in Hong Kong after sales exploded in recent years following the worldwide pandemic, global wars, and natural disasters, which have sharpened the focus on ESG.