Saudi Arabia’s launch of green bonds will spur a wave of green bond issuances in the region: BNY Mellon CEO

Frank La Salla, CEO of BNY Mellon

Frank La Salla, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BNY Mellon’s Issuer Services business, told Argaam, noting that this move will move the agenda of the environment, social, governance (ESG) forward.

The investment size of green bonds is on the rise, La Salla noted, adding that this will show every quarter and every year, as there will be a higher number of green bond issuances.

BNY Mellon is engaging with many prominent entities and companies in Saudi Arabia about green bonds, which look for this type of issuances.

“ESG has become an incredibly important factor, not just for investors but for issuers. Investors worldwide are now looking much more closely at issuance to see how they are in terms of ESG. ESG is becoming much more important,” La Salla added.

“Right now, we’re seeing a lot of more issuers trying to understand and learn about bringing green bonds to the market because investors are demanding that,” La Salla concluded.
 

Elsewhere, Akash Shah, Chief Growth Officer at BNY Mellon, said that the bank is a strategic provider of technology and core banking infrastructure to some of the most important institutions in the Kingdom.

“We are a strategic partner of several of those institutions including SNB Capital, which is a great reflection of our strategy to build alliances with great local, and regional champions,” Shah explained.

BNY Mellon is really committed to the expansion in the Saudi capital markets through knowledge transfer and training and education of the next generation of Saudis.