Reference no: EM133882590
Assignment Questions
With many challenges facing global banks including digitalization, new competitors, unpredictable movement of interest rates, intensified geopolitical risk, heightened economic policy uncertainty and more - it is tempting to downplay environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues when considering a large-scale transformation project. Until recently, ESG standards have become critical to a bank's reputation and what BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has referred ESG to as a "license to operate". Banks with strong ESG focus are also ahead of the curve, gaining both competitive and reputational advantages over their peers.
Though high ESG standards are increasingly critical to bank operation, its impact on bank performance and banking system financial stability is relatively underdeveloped. Your research report will contribute to this scant literature by selecting one of the four banks (Barclays, ANZ, Development Bank of Singapore and HSBC) and discuss the bank ESG strategies and how it impacts on the bank performance and stability over the short, medium and long-term horizons (it is up to you how you choose to define these terms). Your report should answer the following questions:
What are ESG criteria? What are the advantages and disadvantages of bank adopting ESG principles? Your answers should be supported by examples, statistics and expert opinions, demonstrating your capacity to conduct thorough research. Get affordable and professional assignment help now!
What are current rules, regulations and guidelines in place for bank ESG principles domestically and internationally?
What is greenwashing? Why is it a problem? Has your bank greenwashed?
How do ESG strategies impact bank performance and stability over the short, medium and long-term horizons? And why? Your report should discuss relevant theories that explain the association between ESG investment and bank performance as well as its stability. This should be supported by statistics, economic analysis expert opinions obtained from reliable external sources with proper acknowledgement.
Hint: bank performance can be measured by ROA, ROE, profit margin. Bank stability can be measured by Z-index, capital risk, asset risk (i.e., non-performing loans/total assets, loan loss provision/total assets) and liquidity risk (i.e., asset liquidity/total assets).
Overall, the report should not exceed 2,500 words excluding diagrams and charts.
Write concise clear statements and do not pad the study with details other than material pertaining to your analysis. E.g. DO NOT include photocopies of Annual Reports, newspaper and journal articles; these should be cited in the References section.
The report is to be written for a senior manager, and as such should be written at a suitable professional level, using specialised terms and concepts appropriate to them.
You are expected to cite at least 10 peer-reviewed references (academic and industry references) in your report.
Overview
You need to self-select your team members. A maximum of three members are required to form a group. You are required to apply knowledge and theories learned throughout the semester to analyze and evaluate real-life challenges/problems.
The purpose of this assessment is test the students' capacity to work collaboratively in group to provide potential solutions that are grounded with solid research.
The research project will be broken into two parts. This second part will be a written report, which is detailed in this page.
Assessment Criteria
The weighting of the assessment grade will be distributed as follows:
Critically analyse issues and situations that reflect an understanding of the interlinkages between local, national and global dynamics regarding ESG concepts
Demonstrates an ability to appraise and define problems in different contexts
Identifies and draws insight from connections across Finance disciplinary perspectives, knowledge and skills.
Demonstrates a developing sense of self as a learner, building on prior experiences to respond to new and challenging contexts.
References
Style and Structure
Grammar
The report should consist of the following sections: executive summary, introduction, body, conclusion and recommendation, references, appendix.
The targeted Course Learning Outcomes for this assessment are:
Demonstrate the ability to solve real-life problems in financial markets
Critically evaluate the role of participants in capital markets
Synthesise and analyse business issues in the finance industry and provide solutions
Communicate findings of finance case studies to stakeholders, policy makers, industry practitioners and community professionally and effectively