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To check whether a bank finances coal or other fossil fuels, start with its profile in Banking on Climate Chaos (BOCC), then compare the reported financing with the bank’s own dated policies and the sector-specific policy trackers BOCC links to. Treat financing data and policy pledges as different evidence: one records financial commitments under a defined methodology, while the other describes rules the bank says it follows.
Check the bank in five steps
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Find the right legal entity
Search BOCC for both the consumer-facing brand and its parent group. Banking groups can operate through multiple subsidiaries, so note which entity the profile names. Do not assume every affiliate has the same policy or that a parent-level figure applies identically to each brand. BOCC offers bank, client, and parent views.
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Record the profile’s figures and reporting year
Note the reporting year and the profile’s overall fossil-fuel finance measure. Check whether a separate expansion-finance view is available and record that figure independently. The 2026 BOCC page says the analysis covers lending and underwriting commitments for the world’s 65 largest banks and adjusts data according to the share of each company’s business in fossil fuels.
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Check coal and oil-and-gas policies separately
Use BOCC’s links to coal and oil-and-gas policy trackers, then open the bank’s own current policy or sustainability disclosure. Check whether rules cover coal mining, coal-fired power, oil and gas extraction, transport, pipelines, LNG, and expansion. Record thresholds, exceptions, effective dates, and phase-out dates. A broad “net zero” statement does not tell you which activities are restricted or when.
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BankTrack also indexes dated bank policy documents. Check the publication date and the bank’s own version: tracker entries and policies can change over time.
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Read expansion finance as a separate measure
BOCC’s 2026 expansion view is based on Urgewald’s 2025 Global Oil & Gas Exit List and Global Coal Exit List. Its page also identifies separate 2025 subsets for upstream and midstream oil and gas and oil- or gas-fired power development. These are not interchangeable with a bank’s overall fossil-fuel finance total: expansion-company financing is a distinct screen.
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Read the methodology for the edition you are quoting
The 2025 BOCC FAQ says that edition counted corporate lending and underwriting issued during 2021–2024, including syndicated finance. It used sources including Bloomberg Finance L.P., IJGlobal, public company reports, media archives, and Profundo research, and adjusted transactions to estimate the fossil-fuel share of diversified companies. The FAQ says transaction-level data were not published because of commercial data licensing.
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Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.Those period and methodology details apply to the 2025 edition; do not attach the 2021–2024 study window to the 2026 edition. When reporting a figure, name its edition and reporting period.
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What the reported figures can—and cannot—tell you
BOCC reports corporate lending and underwriting under its dataset’s rules. It does not trace an individual customer’s deposit to a particular mine, pipeline, or project. A dataset figure is not the amount of a customer’s money currently outstanding, nor does it establish that every affiliate of a banking group was involved.
Banking on Climate Chaos 2026, as summarized by Reclaim Finance in June 2026, reports $906 billion in fossil-fuel finance in 2025 by the 65 banks covered. The summary also reports $8.7 trillion in finance to oil, gas, and coal since the Paris Agreement, and $508 billion in finance for fossil-fuel expansion companies in 2025. These are report-level aggregates, not claims about each bank or the share of any customer’s deposit.
Reclaim Finance describes BOCC as “the world’s most comprehensive open-source dataset on fossil fuel financing by commercial banks.” That is Reclaim Finance’s characterization of the report, rather than an independent assessment.
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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstallCompare a bank’s policies with its financing record
A policy tracker and a bank’s policy document show stated restrictions; a financing dataset records commitments identified by its methodology. Neither substitutes for the other. A policy may apply only to some activities, use thresholds, or include exceptions. A policy page by itself does not prove that all financing has ended.
For a useful comparison, put the policy’s actual scope beside the financing record. For example, distinguish a restriction on new coal-fired power projects from a restriction on coal mining, and check whether the bank’s rules cover expansion. If a policy and a reported finance figure appear inconsistent, describe the precise difference in scope, entity, or period rather than assuming either that the policy is comprehensive or that the dataset establishes a policy breach.
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If you are considering a switch, compare banks using the same edition, reporting year, and methodology. Then compare the scope and exceptions in their policies, the phase-out dates they state, and how much information they make public. BOCC’s methodology distinguishes corporate lending and underwriting from investment holdings managed by a bank’s asset-management arm, so check which business activity a figure covers.
A universal “best bank” ranking would leave out factors that depend on where you live and which account you need. Verify local account terms, deposit protection, fees, and suitability separately before switching.
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