Stanbic Holdings Deepens Green Finance Push as Trade Financing Hits KES133 Billion
Stanbic Holdings Plc facilitated KES133 billion in trade financing in 2025, comfortably surpassing its annual target of KES90 billion and underscoring the bank’s growing role in supporting regional trade and economic activity across Kenya and South Sudan.
According to the bank’s 2025 Sustainability Report, trade finance remained a key driver of its sustainability and economic growth agenda, helping businesses navigate cross-border commerce and access critical working capital.
The report also highlighted Stanbic’s continued expansion of sustainable finance initiatives. During the year, the bank advanced KES4.5 billion in green building loans alongside KES273 million in solar energy financing, as demand for environmentally sustainable investments continued to grow.
Dr Joshua Oigara, Chief Executive of Stanbic Holdings Plc, said the bank had made a deliberate strategic shift toward sectors that foster long-term national resilience, including green financing, noting that sustainability had been embedded into daily decision-making with performance measured against clear, strategically aligned targets.
Stanbic increased its support for climate-smart agriculture in 2025, disbursing KES2.5 billion to the sector and growing agriculture’s share of its loan portfolio to 9.9%. The bank also extended KES1.8 billion in affordable housing finance during the year, strengthening its contribution to efforts aimed at reducing Kenya’s housing deficit and expanding access to home ownership.
Climate risk management remained a key area of focus as the bank sought to strengthen the resilience of its lending portfolio. Chief Risk Officer Edwin Mucai said Stanbic’s Environmental and Social Risk Management framework requires all loans exceeding USD1 million to undergo environmental and social risk screening before approval, helping the bank identify and manage potential vulnerabilities in financed projects and reducing exposure to long-term risks.
The bank also made progress in strengthening its climate governance and sustainability reporting frameworks, aligning its disclosures with IFRS S1 and S2 standards and securing board approval for key climate-related and sustainability metrics during the year.
Women accounted for 43% of Stanbic’s board membership, reflecting continued emphasis on diversity and inclusion in leadership and decision-making. The Group also reported gains in supplier diversity, with 15.53% of procurement spending directed to women-owned businesses, part of ongoing efforts to expand economic opportunities for women entrepreneurs and promote more inclusive supply chains.
The bank further strengthened its commitment to women’s economic empowerment by signing the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles during the launch of the report, a framework committing organisations to seven areas including gender-inclusive leadership, fair workplace treatment, professional development, supply chain inclusion, community advocacy and improved measurement of gender-related outcomes. This builds on Stanbic’s ongoing investment in women entrepreneurs through its D.A.D.A platform, which has disbursed KES49.5 billion to women-owned businesses since inception and onboarded 112,640 women.
Support for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises remained another major focus area, with the bank disbursing KES105.73 million in grants and catalytic funding to small businesses in 2025 to strengthen resilience and improve access to financing.
Through the Stanbic Foundation, the bank continued to support entrepreneurship and youth development, channelling the same KES105.73 million toward MSMEs while equipping 100,000 young people across eight counties with digital skills aimed at improving employability and participation in the digital economy.
Beyond financing, the bank expanded its environmental conservation efforts, planting 204,000 trees and restoring more than 107 hectares of degraded land, including indigenous tree planting in the Mt. Kenya ecosystem and mangrove restoration at the Sabaki Estuary.
Speaking at the report launch, Priscilla Were, Head of Sustainability, said the bank was focused on tackling critical challenges in Kenya and South Sudan while contributing to greater prosperity for its people, generating strong financial returns for shareholders while creating social, economic and environmental value for the communities it serves.
The bank also introduced a Sustainability Academy, a learning platform designed to help businesses strengthen their sustainability and ESG practices, offering training on renewable energy solutions, climate-smart agriculture, water and wastewater management, and carbon markets.
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