Sustainable Banking, Financial Strength and the Bank Lending Channel of Monetary Policy

The aim of this article is to analyse how sustainable banking affects the transmission of monetary policy through the bank lending channel. We also quantify how these effects are determined by the financial strength of each bank. These objectives, which have not been studied previously, represent an important contribution because real sustainable concerns in banking did not emerged until recently, mainly with the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals that should be reached by 2030. Since then, some studies have focused on the effects of sustainability on aspects such as bank profitability, risk or efficiency, but none has considered the effects on the bank lending channel of monetary policy. In fact, central banks have incorporated sustainability criteria into their agenda and are analyzing how to include these criteria in the monetary policy framework, so we contribute even more by shedding some light on these aspects and how they depend on the financial strength of the banking sector. We used quarterly data from 79 listed banks from the OECD between 2016 and 2019 (947 observations) and we found that the bank lending channel is operative either for banks with very low sustainability ratings or a weak financial position. When sustainability ratings increase and financial strength becomes moderate, the bank lending channel is ineffective and monetary shocks do not affect lending. For banks with certain sustainable compromises and a strong financial position, the impact of monetary shocks on lending is the opposite of the one that the bank lending channel proposes, and this impact is more intense as sustainability ratings increase. Finally, our results also show that increases in central bank assets boost lending only for banks with low or moderate sustainability ratings, regardless of their financial strength. Overall, these results suggest that more sustainable banks are less dependent on monetary policy decisions.