Green travel, recycling of old things, opening of electronic bills, online payment of living expenses… Imagine that when the emission reduction behavior in various scenarios is converted into points in bank accounts in exchange for certain rights and interests, do you still think it is far away to practice the concept of green environmental protection?
While “testing the water” carbon inclusive platforms in many places, some commercial banks are exploring and launching personal carbon accounts for their own users, and take this as a starting point to increase the supply of green financial products.
Recently, the “CITIC carbon account” launched by China Citic Bank Corporation Limited(601998) for individual users has started internal testing. And Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co.Ltd(600000) , China Construction Bank Corporation(601939) , Rizhao bank, etc. have also been laid out.
Insiders said that the establishment of personal carbon accounts is still in its infancy. Commercial banks can use personal carbon accounts to guide users to form green and low-carbon awareness. In the future, it is also possible to bring traffic to banks themselves and accumulate experience for the formation of carbon inclusive mechanism.
advocate green and low-carbon life through personal carbon account
In a popular sense, individual carbon accounts can record and quantify individual energy conservation and emission reduction behaviors. The ant forest of Alipay is regarded as the application of individual carbon account type.
When banks establish personal carbon accounts, they can explore the data portraits of green payment, green travel and green life contained in the bank account system, give play to the role of Finance in optimizing resource allocation, and further increase the supply of green financial retail products. For example, “CITIC carbon account” focuses on the bank’s credit card customers, automatically collects personal low-carbon behavior data under different life scenarios through user authorization, and accumulates personal carbon emission reductions through scientific measurement methods.
According to the accounting prediction of “CITIC carbon account”, China Citic Bank Corporation Limited(601998) credit card users can reduce carbon emissions by more than 2 million tons through low-carbon behavior in online financial services every year.
At the same time, banks have implanted incentive mechanisms in the design of personal carbon accounts to advocate a green and low-carbon life. At the beginning of March, Beijing Financial Technology Innovation regulatory tool implementation working group publicized the relevant information of China Construction Bank Corporation(601939) personal financial services based on “carbon ledger”.
China Construction Bank Corporation(601939) plans to build a personal “carbon account book” for customers, and provide personal financial services such as credit card quota upgrading, installment benefits, bank card consumption discounts, payment concessions, and equity exchange in points mall based on the “carbon account book”.
With personal carbon accounts as the starting point, banks can also innovate more green financial retail products. For example, Qujiang rural commercial bank, relying on personal carbon accounts, innovatively launched “point carbon into gold loans”.
“Turning stone into gold loan” calculates personal carbon points according to the carbon emission reduction of personal green financial behavior, divides customers into three levels of “dark green”, “medium green” and “light green”, and provides differentiated preferential policies in terms of credit line, loan interest rate and handling process.
Last year, sun Jianzhong, a farmer engaged in agricultural machinery operation, obtained a credit loan of 300000 yuan with an annual interest rate of 5.7% from Qujiang agricultural commercial bank because he was recognized as a “dark green” customer, which can reduce the interest expenditure by 2700 yuan compared with similar customers in three years.
However, different from China Citic Bank Corporation Limited(601998) , China Construction Bank Corporation(601939) self built personal carbon account or carbon account book, “turning stone into gold loan” mainly refers to personal carbon points in Quzhou green financial service credit information platform.
As the first batch of green finance reform and innovation pilot zones in China, Quzhou took the lead in piloting the “personal carbon account” of banks in 2018. Not long ago, Quzhou central sub branch of the people’s Bank of China, together with Zhejiang Financial Society and Zhejiang Standardization Association, formulated and completed the implementation of the country’s first provincial group standard for bank personal carbon account.
In fact, many governments have successively planned and launched carbon inclusive platforms that can record residents’ green and low-carbon behavior. For example, the Chengdu municipal government has launched the “carbon benefit Tianfu” small program. Citizens can obtain carbon points through green travel, participation in low-carbon activities and consumption in low-carbon scenes, and exchange the points for inclusive goods or services.
promote the construction of carbon inclusive mechanism, and carbon account is the entry point for building a green and low-carbon bank
At present, many places are promoting the construction of carbon inclusive mechanism, and the exploration of personal carbon account is an integral part of it.
Last November, the Shenzhen municipal government issued the work plan for the construction of Shenzhen carbon inclusive system, which proposed to quantify the energy-saving and carbon reduction behaviors of small and micro enterprises, community families and individuals and give them some value.
The plan also makes it clear that relevant financial support policies for the carbon inclusive system in Shenzhen should be established and improved. For example, explore opening personal carbon accounts, issuing carbon credit cards, and establishing a credit system linked to personal low-carbon behavior.
In order to build a “model room” for carbon inclusion in Shanghai, the work plan for the construction of Shanghai Carbon inclusion mechanism (Exposure Draft) proposes to explore the establishment of regional individual carbon accounts, improve the public’s perception of their own energy conservation and carbon reduction behavior, and provide diversified path choices for the public to participate in carbon emission reduction activities.
According to Zhao Yue, assistant researcher of Chongyang National People’s Congress, the essence of personal carbon account is an inclusive mechanism. It is not to use personal carbon account to achieve direct emission reduction, but to provide rewards through personal green behavior. At the same time, this is also the biggest advantage of personal carbon account. It reduces carbon emissions from the consumer side, rather than directly controlling carbon emissions at the production side like carbon trading.
So, what are the significant advantages of commercial banks in exploring personal carbon accounts for banks and individual customers?
Gao Weitao, managing director of Zhongcheng lvjin technology, said that commercial banks can not only support green industries through credit, but also use personal carbon accounts to guide users to form green environmental awareness, improve users’ participation and enthusiasm through incentive mechanisms such as point exchange, and let users gradually develop green consumption habits. In the future, personal carbon accounts may also bring traffic to banks themselves and accumulate experience for the formation of carbon inclusive mechanism.
“Carbon account is an important exploration in the operability, measurability and verifiability of carbon emission reduction accounting of financial business of commercial banks. It is an important entry point for building a green and low-carbon bank.” Yang Haiping, a researcher at the Institute of securities and futures of the Central University of Finance and economics, believes that banks can guide individual customers to live a green and low-carbon life through carbon accounts. Moreover, when the carbon account is linked to certain rights and interests, it can also be used as a new entrance to customer marketing.
Yang Haiping said that there are two data sources for commercial banks to establish carbon accounts: one is to collect carbon emission reduction behavior data based on multiple sources, including internal and external data. In this case, the carbon account data is relatively accurate; The other is based on in-line data. In this case, the carbon account data can only reflect the local carbon emission reduction behavior of customers. In practice, it is also common for local governments to cooperate with commercial banks to build a carbon account platform, which is more convenient to collect multi-source carbon emission reduction data.
“Banks are still in the exploratory stage of personal carbon accounts.” Gao Weitao believes that at this stage, subject to the source of data, the coverage is relatively limited, but the ultimate purpose of the bank is to attract users to participate as much as possible. We should improve the whole chain of product development, innovative application scenarios and publicity and drainage. At the same time, we should also pay attention to the legitimacy of data acquisition and protect users’ personal information, so as to make the bank and users win-win.
Generally speaking, green retail products represented by green consumer credit, green credit card and green deposit have been launched one after another, but the supply is still insufficient Bank Of China Limited(601988) president Liu Jin once suggested to form a digital account book of carbon emission reduction scientifically and quantitatively, and give specific support or credit preference according to the green score of customers; Innovate and launch personal green credit and green deposit products, and deeply integrate with consumer finance, science and technology finance, rural finance, ecological agriculture and other fields.
