In April 2025, the NGO Reclaim Finance released a report analysing the disclosures of twenty of the largest European and UK banks to understand their climate transition planning process.

The report analysed Barclays, BBVA, BNP Paribas, BPCE Group, Crédit Agricole, Crédit Mutuel, Deutsche Bank, DZ Bank, HSBC, ING, Intesa Sanpaolo, La Banque Postale, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest, Rabobank, Santander, Société Générale, Standard Chartered, UBS, and UniCredit.

Of the 20 banks, the report outlines instances of better practice. For example, it highlights La Banque Postale’s phase out and exclusion policies for coal, oil and gas; and says Lloyds Banking Group, Standard Chartered, Barclays, UniCredit and Deutsche Bank exhibit better practice in their publication of detailed frameworks listing and defining sustainable financial products and eligibility criteria.

Germany’s DZ Bank, Groupe BPCE, and Rabobank scored among the lowest.

Key findings include:

• No banks have a “robust transition plan”; and nearly all banks score below 50/100.
• Higher scores were recorded in “reporting and governance”, but this cannot be linked to meaningful climate action. The lowest scores were in categories covering “concrete actions” that reduce their negative impact on the climate.
• Decarbonisation strategies were particularly lacking. Banks supported activities, such as fossil fuel expansion, that contrasted with their climate commitments.

The report is written in light of threats to transition planning obligations through the “Omnibus” proposal. Reclaim Finance therefore calls on the European Parliament and Member States to preserve transition planning rules and reject the Commission’s Omnibus proposal. It also calls on banks to use the analysis’ recommendations to build high-quality transition plans.

The Banker reached out to all named banks. Comments from La Banque Postale, DZ Bank, Santander, Groupe BPCE, Crédit Rabobank are included in the article linked below.