Global banks’ financing of energy rose to $2.3trn in 2025

The world’s banks allocated 15% more capital to the energy sector last year than in 2024, arranging and underwriting deals worth $2.3 trillion, according to a fresh study by BloombergNEF (BNEF).

Against a backdrop of rising demand spurred by AI data centres, cooling technologies and the proliferation of electric vehicles, banks stepped up low-carbon financing by 16%, with such deals reaching a five-year high, BNEF wrote on Thursday.

Deals backing oil, gas and coal, meanwhile, rose 13% last year, it said.

The study maps out the role played by the global financial system in enabling the low-carbon transition. BNEF estimates that in order to reach net zero emissions, banks need to channel $4 toward clean energy for every $1 they allocate to fossil fuels.

For now, the sector is lagging far behind that target, having spent 97 cents on clean energy for every $1 directed into fossil fuels, according to BNEF’s study of 2025 data.

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The headline figures disguise significant regional differences, though. For example, Wall Street banks trail their counterparts in Europe by a wide margin.

Of the major North American banks BNEF looked at, all except Citigroup raised their volume of capital allocations to the energy sector, though a greater share of financing was directed to fossil-fuel energy supply, BNEF said.

In Europe, meanwhile, NatWest Group Plc emerged as the bank with the highest allocations to green deals relative to the amount it directed toward fossil fuels, spending $6.42 on clean energy for every $1 spent on fossil fuels, BNEF said.

In the Asia Pacific region, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc remained the largest bank ranked by energy supply deals last year, BNEF said. Most of the energy financing done by the bank last year went toward fossil fuels, BNEF also said.

At the same time, Asia “displays a clear divide between Japanese and Chinese banks,” BNEF said, noting that the 10 Chinese banks analysed in the study all allocated more to clean energy than to fossil fuels last year.

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Agricultural Bank of China “saw the greatest improvement,” in its ratio, spending $3.44 on clean tech for every $1 spent on fossil fuels, BNEF said.

Globally, JPMorgan Chase & Co allocated more money than any other bank to the energy sector, facilitating $100 billion in such activity, BNEF said.

“While low-carbon financing fell slightly, fossil-fuel volumes continued to grow,” such that the bank spent only 63 cents on clean energy every time it allocated $1 to fossil fuels, BNEF said.

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