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Second finalix Sustainable Finance Roundtable

Beratungsgespräch mit Gra

The second finalix Sustainable Finance Roundtable took place on October 27, 2022. This time we were able to increase the diversity among participants, creating a good mix of representatives from private banking / wealth management (8), asset management (2) and financial information and analysis companies (2).


The first roundtable on June 15, 2022, presented the EU Action Plan and its regulatory packages SFDR and EU Taxonomy for discussion. Due to the applicability of the “MiFID II Suitability Guidelines” for handling sustainability preferences for clients since August 2, 2022, this topic was now in focus. Furthermore, the self-regulations of the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) as well as the Swiss Climate Scores were used in perspective.


The private banks take a rather critical view of the profiling of sustainability preferences at the current time. It is challenging to explain clients the complexity and impact of the different metrics from SFDR, the EU Taxonomy and the Principle Adverse Impacts on their portfolio. The ambition of the questionnaire for profiling is perceived positively. However, regarding its implementation, it is currently sometimes seen as a hurdle for the client and not as a solution. Furthermore, due to a lack of data, client portfolios in the sense of the EU Action Plan are today usually only sustainable to a small extent. Customers are thus deterred and tempted to invest in “brown” financial instruments or to “opt out” completely. The latter seems to be preferred by the majority of retail clients at present. This actually defeats the purpose of regulation, which is to channel private investors’ assets into sustainable investments. It is expected that the situation will not improve until 2023 at the earliest, due to increased data availability.


In this context, representatives of data providers are particularly interested in which data fields of the EET (European ESG Template) are really needed by the banks present. However, due to the incompleteness of the data and the still very low coverage, the EET seems to be of little relevance for private banks at present. The asset managers present confirmed this statement. As manufacturers of financial instruments, they already fill out the EET, but receive few queries from distributors.


The participants also see the following challenges in the future:

  • The diversity of metrics and their impact on private banking (including EU Action- Plan vs. CH-Climate Scores vs. UK Greening Finance).
  • The technocratic focus on different metrics. There should be a rationalization on emissions and climate related investments (see also: The Economist: ESG Investing).
  • The need for a CO2 tax and its impact on investments.
  • The marketing towards the younger generations (Generation Y among others) and their preference for sustainable investments. In this context, also the extension to other sectors such as insurers and pension funds.

We plan to continue the discussion in 2023. Especially the topics SFDR Level II Reporting, the SBA guidelines and the improved availability of data (SFDR, EU taxonomy, PAIs) will be key topics.


If you have any questions or want to find out more about the topic, feel free to contact us:


References to the studies mentioned in the summary.

  • The Economist: ESG Investing (LINK)

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