Banks and insurers have until the end of this year to submit their findings, with the results due to be published in May 2022
The head of the world’s oldest building society has said he “takes comfort” from a new assessment of flooding and other climate change risks across its £400 million portfolio of mortgage loans throughout Scotland.
Paul Denton said under Scottish Building Society’s new partnership with European climate change analysts Ambiental, the society looked at every property on its books to determine current and future risks over a 10 to 50-year timescale. Under various scenarios assuming different levels of carbon in the atmosphere, and the impact of that on climate, the mortgage lender now has a clearer understanding of the threat level to these properties.
Although he declined to detail the findings, he noted that Scottish Building Society has a relatively small and simple mortgage book that does not include commercial properties. And given that all its lending is against properties in Scotland – which is not as prone to the problems of coastal erosion and rising tides as less elevated parts of the UK – the outlook is not “overly-concerning”.
Against our portfolio here in Scotland, I did take comfort with what came back, though that it not to say that there is any complacency, he said.
Mr Denton was speaking just a day after the Bank of England (BoE) set out its first comprehensive stress test of the ability of the British financial system to cope with climate change. The test will be used to judge the resilience of the UK’s 19 biggest banks and insurers such as HSBC, Barclays, Aviva, RSA and Lloyd’s of London.
The Bank of England’s test is based on three scenarios covering a period of 30 years: early action by governments to cut carbon emissions; action that is late; and no action at all. Each scenario will be applied to two main risks: physical due to fires and floods caused by temperature changes, and the danger of sudden changes in asset values triggered by the transition to more climate-friendly business practices.
The 19 banks and insurers have until the end of this year to submit their findings, with the results due to be published in May 2022.
Because the test is regarded as experimental, the Bank of England will only publish the findings in aggregate, rather than a firm-by-firm basis. For the time being, the results will not be used to determine capital requirements, which set the amount of financial cushion that institutions need to protect them from risky loans and products on their balance sheets.
Ambiental estimates that an additional 1.2 million properties across the UK could be at risk of flooding by 2050. Given that 35% of UK households have property debt, and with an average mortgage value of £137,000, this means some £60 billion in mortgage debt could be impaired by climate-induced flooding alone.