Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC Bank) has formed a strategic partnership with MetaVerse Green Exchange (MVGX) to develop new green financing solutions that are poised to be launched later in the year.
MVGX is a digital green exchange licensed and regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The partnership marks OCBC’s first foray into the digital asset sector, since announcing that it is considering setting up a crypto exchange in November last year.
The financing solutions will include tokenised carbon credits in the form of MVGX’s Carbon Neutrality Tokens (CNTs), which allows large corporates to offset their carbon emissions as well as simplify their path to carbon neutrality.
The expected carbon emissions from projects utilising these financing solutions will be verified by an independent party to calculate the corresponding carbon credits required.
MVGX’s CNTs are supported by its proprietary Non-Fungible Digital Twin distributed ledger technology, which provides verifiable, immutable and constantly updated records of the carbon performance of the climate-action projects that they have invested in through these digital carbon credits.
OCBC’s head of global corporate banking Elaine Lam said there will be increased urgency in corporates’ transition to a low carbon future by cutting down greenhouse gas emissions, with the recently released report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
See also: A US$12 bil climate fund is readying a rare bond issuance
“We hope to accelerate these efforts by providing financing solutions with tokenised carbon credits, and expand the reach of private sector finance in areas and sectors most crucial in mitigating climate change,” she added.
By end-2021, OCBC had extended over $34 billion in sustainable financing to customers, surpassing its original target of $25 billion by 2025. It has since established a new target of $50 billion in sustainable financing commitments by 2050.
MVGX launched its first batch of CNTs ahead of COP25 in Glasgow last year. The asset-backed tokens were tied to carbon credit generated by a wind project in Zhangjiakou, China, verified and registered with China’s National Carbon Registry. The first tranche of 5,000 carbon credits was sold to a Hong Kong-based private equity firm.
