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Yes. A 2026 analysis summarized by Climate Change News found that some banks associated with the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) continued financing coal companies between 2022 and 2025. Among NZBA banks active in coal finance, roughly half increased that financing and roughly half reduced it. The alliance was a voluntary net-zero and target-setting initiative, not a universal ban on coal lending.

What the 2022–2025 comparison found

Climate Change News, reporting on analysis by Urgewald, says coal-related finance did not move in one direction across NZBA banks active in the sector: roughly half increased it and roughly half reduced it. The analysis covers loans and underwriting, so “financing” is broader than money lent directly to a coal company.

The finding is an attributed analysis, not an audited disclosure by each bank. It shows that continued coal-related financing occurred among some banks associated with the alliance; it does not show that NZBA membership caused the financing or that every member financed coal.

Which banks are named?

The article identifies two different groups, which should not be conflated:

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Banks described as heavily involved in NZBA and the wider Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero when it launched ahead of COP26 in 2021 Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and Santander
Banks reported to have provided loans or underwriting to Glencore in the preceding year Bank of America, Citigroup, Santander, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Standard Chartered

These lists describe different things: involvement at the alliance’s launch and financing to one company. HSBC and Standard Chartered appear in the Glencore example, not in the article’s stated launch-involvement list.

The Glencore example

Climate Change News describes Glencore as Switzerland-based and says coal accounted for 4% of its revenue. The company received loans and underwriting from the seven banks listed in the table during the preceding year. The same article says Glencore received preliminary regulatory approval to continue coal mining in Australia’s Hunter Valley until 2045. The example illustrates financing to a diversified company with coal exposure; it does not establish that each transaction funded a new mine or other coal project.

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How coal finance was counted

Urgewald’s analysis, as summarized by Climate Change News, includes loans and underwriting and attributes only a share of a company’s financing to coal based on the share of its revenue derived from coal. For example, the article explains that a hypothetical $100 million loan to RWE would be counted as $21 million of coal finance if coal generated 21% of RWE’s revenue.

  • This revenue-based allocation captures a portion of general corporate finance; it is not a tally of direct project finance to new coal mines or power plants.
  • The analysis does not distinguish companies expanding coal operations from companies winding them down as they shift toward lower-carbon activities.
  • Its estimate is therefore a measure of attributed financing under that methodology, not proof that a particular loan paid for a specific coal asset.

Those distinctions matter when interpreting the word “lending”: underwriting is also included, and an attributed coal-finance amount should not be read as direct funding for new coal infrastructure.

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What NZBA membership did—and did not—require

According to the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), member banks committed to independently transition their financing activities toward net-zero emissions by 2050 at the latest and to set intermediate sector targets for 2030 or earlier. NZBA membership did not, by itself, require every bank to stop financing coal.

The alliance’s 2024 progress materials recorded membership growth from 43 banks at its April 2021 launch to 144. The 2024 report drew on submissions from 122 member banks received through the end of May 2024; its policy figures are a historical snapshot, not current counts.

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NZBA-reported coal-policy measure Figure in the 2024 report
Banks reporting coal targets or phase-out policies 36
Banks reporting no coal-sector exposure 51
Banks reporting coal phase-out policies 14
Most common phase-out dates among banks with such policies 2030 for OECD countries; 2040 for non-OECD countries

These are figures reported by NZBA for its 2024 reporting period, not a present-day count of members or policies. The alliance also did not establish a single coal-target perimeter for all banks. Its report’s coal emissions scope includes mining thermal and metallurgical coal, transport, and end-use combustion in industrial applications; banks’ targets could therefore cover different activities.

How the alliance ended—and what is not established

Climate Change News reported on October 2, 2026, that NZBA requirements had been diluted in April 2025 and that the alliance shut down in October 2025 after further withdrawals. Its closure does not erase the distinction between a voluntary target-setting commitment and a lending ban, nor does the reported 2022–2025 comparison establish what happened to any one bank’s coal financing after the alliance ended.

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The available figures do not provide a bank-by-bank post-2025 follow-up or establish that leaving or dissolving NZBA caused a change in lending. The specific question of how individual banks’ policies and financing changed after October 2025 remains unanswered by these reported figures.

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Separate U.S. figures: a wider coal-finance context

A 2026 NGO publication, Still Banking on Coal, reported that financing to coal companies by U.S. banks rose from $13.6 billion in 2022 to $16.7 billion in 2025. It reported the following bank totals for those years:

Bank 2022 2025
Bank of America $1.5 billion $2.3 billion
JPMorgan Chase $1.5 billion $2.2 billion
Wells Fargo $1.2 billion $1.9 billion

These are figures attributed to the briefing, not audited bank disclosures. They provide wider context on U.S. coal finance and should not be treated as the NZBA comparison: the figures come from a separate publication, and the evidence presented here does not establish that every bank in this table was part of the NZBA comparison.

Quick Recap

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