This bank has a huge exposure to the fossil fuel sector
Zenith is an international bank headquartered in Nigeria.
Zenith Bank UK is the Bank's UK subsidiary. It provides savings accounts to UK residents.
Zenith has a dedicated division that supports its oil and gas customers. At the end of 2023, around 30% of its commercial lending portfolio was made up of loans to the sector, totaling £1BN. For the UK subsidiary this was 3.5% and $37M respectively.
As it that wasn't bad enough, Zenith uses some of the worst financiers of fossil fuel expansion for its own banking needs, including Barclays, HSBC and Citibank.
The Bank has not set any climate targets and does not provide financial support to clean energy.
You don't have to take our word for it - this is what the Bank's UK subsidiary has said in its most recent financial filing:
"The Board recognises the Bank’s strong connections to Sub-Saharan Africa and Nigeria as a “Home” country and the dependence that many corporates and sovereigns in the region place upon economies driven largely by fossil fuels and other carbon intensive activities."
While you’ve been saving money for a home or a weekend get-away, your bank has likely been using your savings to lend to some very questionable fossil fuel friends.
Banks like this one have demonstrated that they're not interested in fighting in the climate crisis. While banks don't publish all of their lending information, we can see that this bank has positioned itself well to fund fossil fuels. We can also see its lack of interest in doing climate-positive things like measuring and disclosing its total emissions or stating that it doesn't fund fossil fuels. We've therefore given it our lowest rating.
The Paris Agreement set the goal to stay under 1.5°C of warming for very good reasons. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an increase of just a couple of degrees more could lead to "substantial species extinction, large risks to global and regional food security", and an inability to work outside — or even live — in some areas of the world. Our world will become unrecognizable as ocean dead zones, floods, and extreme weather fuel social and economic disruption.
Banks live and die on their reputations. Mass movements of money to fossil-free competitors puts those reputations at grave risk. By moving your money to a sustainable financial institution, you will:
Send a message to your bank that it must defund fossil fuels
Join a fast-growing movement of consumers standing up for their future
Take a critical climate action with profound effects