This study aims to examine whether banks are compliant with adopting sustainability regulations and guidelines, and how they disclose their sustainable finance activities in sustainability reporting by providing case of Indonesian banking. Previous research provided discussions on the role of governance in supporting many variables as quantitative studies, but failed to demonstrate on going practices of how banking industries implement sustainable finance governance. Hence, this study provides originality by analyzing the extend of disclosures in order to evaluate their commitments in responding to sustainability regulations and guidelines, through disclosures of economic, environment, social, and governance (EESG) information in annual and sustainability reports. The samples were undertaken by examining the contents of sustainability and annual reports published for the financial year 2016 to 30 June 2021, for the Indonesian banks listed in business category 4, business category 3, and international banks, with the total of 202 reports. The results indicate that the implementation of sustainable finance in EESG information increases annually with social performances are the highest information disclosed, while the governance and economic information received the lowest level of disclosure. Results of this study will benefit policymakers, banks, and related companies to understand sustainable finance governance, and reveal the importance the role of banking industries to support Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Providing the insights of the ongoing discussions are expected to suggest following actions for further policies to support the implementation of sustainable finance, in particular to establish sustainability governance as a foundation of commitments, beyond complying to regulations.

Our study focusses on the sustainable finance framework of the European Union. Given that the concept, target system and practical implementation of sustainability have become one of the top priorities, we consider it important to present in an understandable and simple form what activities and regulations have been created in this regard within the scope of the European Union’s common policy. Starting from the concept of sustainability, we analyse its significance. We examine the economic, social, corporate governance and environmental pillars and the European Green Deal based on them as foundations, as well as some prominent elements of sustainable finance: the Taxonomy, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation and the Union’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. We review the relationships and interactions of the above elements. We describe the sustainability objectives of the European Green Deal and the resources related to them, as well as the Sustainable Finance package of the European Commission. We also provide an overview of the regulatory details of the above-mentioned elements of EU law, thereby making the complex and complicated process of regulation transparent. These issues are relevant to Hungary and other EU member states located in Central and Eastern Europe and they have an effect on their policies.

The banking sector is a pillar of the world’s economic fabric and is today facing a major revolution due to the demands of sustainable development objectives and the evolution of sustainable finance tools. This article analyses the impact of green credit on commercial banks’ performance based on data from 10 commercial banks in China between 2012 and 2022. The study found that in the short term, the implementation of green credit has a positive effect on the income level of commercial banks’ intermediate activities and a moderating effect on their return on total assets and non-performing loan ratio.