We are pleased to release our annual report for 2025, which sets out how BankTrack worked in an increasingly challenging geopolitical context to track the commercial banking sector globally, hold banks to account for their negative impacts on climate, nature and human rights, and ultimately push for a system-wide change towards a sector that operates within planetary boundaries and in support of social justice.  

• We worked in coalitions to launch the latest versions of Banking on Climate Chaos and Banking on Biodiversity Collapse, exposing how the financial sector continues to be complicit in the expansion of fossil fuels and the destruction of nature. 

• In a world of growing conflict, we kept focus on the response of banks to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, produced research exposing Raiffeisen Bank’s finance for sanctioned entities, and pushed banks to improve their policy responses to conflicts in general. 

• We pursued several complaints using the OECD Guidelines and banks’ own nascent grievance channels, including seeking remedy from Standard Chartered for its coal financing; seeking action from Barclays, HSBC and UBS on their links to the private prison sector; and supporting community claims against Australian and Japanese banks financing JSW Steel. 

• We launched the Users’ Guide to Bank Human Rights Complaint Channels, to help communities find the right channels for their claims to hold banks accountable.

There were setbacks from banks rolling back their climate policies, and we helped expose backsliding from HSBC and Santander, among others. But 2025 was also a year of successes. Following a submission from BankTrack and partners, the Science Based Targets initiative updated its guidelines confirming that financing metallurgical coal expansion is not aligned with the Paris Agreement, and more banks abandoned oil and gas projects like the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, Coral North FLNG and Papua LNG.  

For BankTrack it was also a year of change, with Johan Frijns leaving the role of Executive Director in September after leading the organisation since its inception in 2002, and Asensio Rodríguez stepping into the role. We all thank Johan for building and leading this organisation, which we are immensely proud to carry forward. 

Read our annual report here.