Case study: SFDR advice for a UK bank

The European Union launched a new legislative programme to make environmental, social and governance (ESG) central to regulation in the financial services industry.

As part of this package, the Regulation on sustainability-related disclosures in the financial services sector (the SFDR) was published in December 2019. This is something we advised a private division of a UK headquartered bank on.

The challenge

The new ESG regulations require banks to make strategic decisions about how sustainability is integrated into their businesses and financial products. This poses many challenges, including the need to prepare complex new disclosures at both the organisation-level and product-level.

This bank wanted support from a law firm that specialises in ESG work ahead of the deadline – which is why they came to us.

Our solution

We worked with the bank to provide scoping advice, project planning and strategic decision making. We then also advised on template policies, disclosure working, and the legal process to update product documentation.

The outcome

The outcome is that the bank is on course to be compliant with the SFDR ahead of the deadline.

Would you like to find out how we can help you with SDFR? Get in touch.