Banks that want to lend with a conscience have perhaps just received a major helping hand. Indian tech major Tech Mahindra (TECHM) has introduced a new platform “ i.GreenFinance ” which seeks to assist banks and lenders in negotiating the complex universe of green and sustainability-linked financing with the help of AI. IT Brief Asia+1
i.GreenFinance is not just another fintech widget. Developed with Amazon Web Services (AWS) the tool leverages cloud-based computing and generative-AI to automate ESG ( environment, social, governance ) data collection, scoring, reporting and compliance – from loan origination through to disbursement and post-fund usage tracking.
This will require real-time scrutiny, audit-ready reports and – most important of all – sunlight on whether green money is in fact being used for green projects. IT Brief Asia+1
What’s cool (and, honestly, kind of overdue) is how this addresses one of the biggest hang-ups to sustainable finance: unreliable ESG data and inconsistent regulation.
Large-scale green lending has long been stymied by the absence of universally agreed ESG metrics and fragmented data, Ahluwalia, Tech Mahindra’s chief sustainability officer said. i.Green Finance pledges to solve that with standardized ESG assessment – enabling, in theory at least, lenders to confidently scale green portfolios across the regions. IT Brief Asia+1
The timing couldn’t be better. With more countries taking steps to make disclosure laws tighter and investors increasingly pressing for improved environmental accountability, AI-based ESG tools are becoming more necessary.
AI has become a key player in ESG reporting -reprehensible for automating data as well as delivering on-the-fly compliance checks against ever-changing regulations, according to an analysis. Consultancy ME+1
Naturally – it’s not all rainbows and sunshine. But experts are quick to warn that while AI can supercharge ESG scoring and sustainability assessments, it’s only as good as the data fueling it-and whether you can trust that underlying data could depend heavily on how transparent firms are about their AI models and how consistently they’re able to provide sound governance.
Some scholarly work even warns of “energy-cost tradeoffs” and the difficulty in imbuing ethical oversight when automating sustainability decisions. Inrate+2arXiv+2
But still, I have to ask: Creating something like i.GreenFinance sure seems like a big, bullish bet on the world of tomorrow in which banks do not just lend – but also invest with real accountability.
If other lenders were to follow this model, maybe green finance would no longer be a niche – maybe it becomes the new norm.
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