Nedbank's Green Savings Bond is a bog-standard bank offering for retail customers, except that funds are channelled to financing renewable projects under the South African Government's ambitious sustainable energy policy.
We reported last Summer that the bank was planning to raise R4 billion with the (then) new bond. This week Nedbank reported they'd raised that amount. (We'd previously said they had raise R8bn, but we realise now their press release was a little confusing, and so have corrected this post. Digging further we found it was R4bn on green bonds and R4bn on savings bonds).
The bank says that over 20% of the investors are new to Nedbank; 80% investors are over 40 years old.
The bond's return is fully guaranteed by Nedbank, just like a standard Nedbank corporate offering. Terms are 18 months to 5 years.
As Nedbank Capital's Mike Peo says, the bond shows that "backing green investments do not mean compromising on returns".
Will big banks in other countries learn from Nedbank's success?
Nedbank Group's six month Interim Results to 30 June 2013 saw its retail business generating headline earnings of R1.1 billion ($110m).
