Singapore's bank OCBC doubles SMEs sustainable financing to $5.2 bln in 2023

SINGAPORE, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Singapore's second-largest bank Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC) has more than doubled the sustainable financing it extended to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to over S$7 billion ($5.20 billion) last year, its senior officer said on Monday.

The loans were extended to over 1,200 SMEs in Asia including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Hong Kong across sectors from built environment to renewable energy, OCBC head of global commercial banking Linus Goh said in a media briefing.

OCBC, which is also Southeast Asia's second-largest lender by assets, also looks to double the number of sustainability-linked loans it extended to regional enterprises this year from 24 in 2023, Goh added.

"Once you have the first ones move, the rest will follow," he said. "We only did one in 2022, and then we were able to capture about 24 last year, and we hope that we will more than double that this year." ($1 = 1.3463 Singapore dollars) (Reporting by Yantoultra Ngui, Editing by Louise Heavens)