Transition Finance for Banks
The clients who most need to change are the ones a green label cannot reach. Transition finance lets a bank stay with them — but only if it can tell a credible plan from a well-written one.
Format
Classroom · Virtual
Upcoming sessions
Pick a session to applyADMISSIONS OPENCity cohorts run once six delegates are nominated. Tell us your preferred month and we’ll confirm dates at least four weeks ahead — please hold travel bookings until then — or offer the nearest confirmed session, live virtual, or in-house. No payment until confirmation.
The programme
Transition Finance for Banks is a two-day programme for corporate and project finance bankers, credit risk, ESG and sustainable finance teams who must decide whether to finance clients in high-emitting sectors as they decarbonise. It covers what transition finance is, how it differs from green finance, and how to test a client’s climate transition plan for credibility. Participants interpret the ICMA Climate Transition Finance Handbook (November 2025 edition) and Climate Transition Bond Guidelines, the OECD Guidance on Transition Finance and its ten elements of credible corporate transition plans, and the transition plan disclosures IFRS S2 requires where a company has a plan. They weigh credible transition plan assessment against greenwashing and carbon lock-in risk, and place financing the energy transition within the Basel Committee’s 2022 principles on climate-related financial risks. Case studies and peer benchmarks reflect international best practice. Delivered in English and French in Dubai, London and across the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe — and live online.
What you will do
Who attends
- Corporate, energy and infrastructure bankers, and project finance teams
- Credit risk analysts, credit approvers and portfolio managers
- ESG, sustainable finance and climate risk teams
- Debt capital markets and loan syndication professionals arranging labelled or transition deals
- Strategy, risk governance and second-line staff overseeing climate commitments
- Supervisors, and staff of multilateral and public lenders who review bank transition financing
- Participants should be familiar with corporate lending and with basic climate and ESG concepts
Programme agenda
Built around one question — is this plan credible enough to finance — day one the principles and the plan, day two the credit decision and the portfolio
I.What transition finance is — and is not
- Why green finance alone cannot reach high-emitting sectors, and the case for transition finance
- Use-of-proceeds, sustainability-linked and general corporate financing for transition
- Where green ends and transition begins: the ICMA Climate Transition Bond Guidelines of November 2025
II.The principles banks are measured against
- The ICMA Climate Transition Finance Handbook: its four elements and how they apply to use-of-proceeds and sustainability-linked instruments
- The OECD Guidance on Transition Finance (2022) and its ten elements of credible corporate transition plans
- How the voluntary principles, disclosure standards and supervisory expectations fit together
III.What the client must disclose: IFRS S2 and transition plans
- IFRS S2, issued by the ISSB in June 2023: disclosure of any climate-related transition plan, its key assumptions and its dependencies
- The IFRS Foundation’s June 2025 guidance on transition plan disclosures, built on the Transition Plan Taskforce material it took on in 2024
- What disclosure tells a lender — and what it does not, since IFRS S2 does not require a company to have a plan
IV.Testing a transition plan for credibility
- Targets and pathways: long-term ambition, interim milestones and whether they are science-based
- The money behind the plan: capital expenditure, business model change and dependence on offsets
- Governance and track record: who owns the plan, how progress is reported and what happened to earlier commitments
V.Greenwashing and carbon lock-in
- How the OECD Guidance treats carbon lock-in as a source of greenwashing risk in transition finance
- Financing long-lived assets: when an interim technology supports transition and when it entrenches emissions
- Reputational, conduct and litigation exposure for the lender, weighed through case studies
VI.From plan to credit decision
- Bringing the transition assessment into credit analysis, pricing, covenants and conditions
- Sustainability-linked terms as a transition tool: KPIs, targets and verification
- When to finance, when to engage and when to step back
VII.Portfolio, governance and the supervisor
- The Basel Committee’s June 2022 principles for the effective management and supervision of climate-related financial risks
- Sector policies, portfolio steering and the bank’s own climate commitments
- What the board, the risk committee and the supervisor will ask, benchmarked against peer disclosures
VIII.Integrated case study
- A high-emitting industrial client seeks a large facility to fund its published transition plan
- Testing the plan against the ICMA and OECD elements and the client’s IFRS S2 disclosures
- Arguing the recommendation — finance, finance with conditions or decline — before a mock credit committee
Frequently asked
What is transition finance?
Transition finance is finance for companies and activities that are not green today but are moving towards lower emissions — typically in high-emitting sectors that green labels do not reach. The OECD Guidance on Transition Finance argues that, to be robust, it must rest on credible corporate transition plans. That is why the course spends most of its time on testing plans, not on labels.
What has changed recently in transition finance?
In June 2025 the IFRS Foundation published guidance on disclosing transition plans under IFRS S2, drawing on the Transition Plan Taskforce material it took responsibility for in 2024. In November 2025 ICMA published the Climate Transition Bond Guidelines and an updated Climate Transition Finance Handbook. Banks therefore have clearer reference points for judging what a client says about its transition.
Does IFRS S2 require companies to have a transition plan?
No. IFRS S2 requires a company to disclose information about any climate-related transition plan it has, including its key assumptions and dependencies, but it does not require a company to have or publish one. For a lender, the absence of a plan is itself information, and the course looks at how to read both situations.
How is it different from the climate risk and ESG courses?
Climate Risk Management and Sustainable Banking looks at climate risk across the bank, and ESG and Climate Risk Stress Testing at scenario analysis. This course is about one decision: whether and how to finance a client’s transition. It sits between credit and sustainable finance, and complements the Green, Social & Sustainability-Linked Finance course on labelled instruments.
What level is the programme?
It is for practitioners. Participants should be familiar with corporate lending and with basic climate and ESG concepts; the transition principles and disclosure standards are introduced from first reading and then applied through case studies.
Can it run live virtual or in-house?
Yes. Public cohorts run in the classroom and live virtual. For one institution, the programme can run in-house as a custom programme, scoped on request, in English or French.
Is there a group rate, and do delegates receive a certificate?
Institutions sending several delegates, in one cohort or across the year, receive group terms; fees are provided on enquiry. Each participant receives a BIZENIUS Banking Academy certificate of completion. The programme is practice-led rather than exam-led and is not preparation for a third-party qualification.
Who teaches this
Practitioners, not presenters.
Led by practitioners who have carried sustainability, climate-risk and governance accountability inside financial institutions and industrial operators, and who advise boards on how these obligations are examined. The teaching is practical: what a supervisor, an investor or a lender actually asks, and what a defensible answer looks like.
What the bench brings
- ESG integration into credit and risk processes
- Green and climate-finance readiness
- Sustainability governance for boards
- Environmental management systems
- Credit analysis, underwriting and structuring
- Credit policy design and portfolio diagnostics
Where they have practised
Current and former practitioners — people who hold the seat today alongside those who have held it.
Sectors: Banking & financial services · Government & public sector · Oil & gas · Insurance
Regions: Africa · the Middle East · Europe · Asia · the Americas
How they teach
- Case studies of supervisory and investor scrutiny
- Group work on realistic portfolio and policy cases
- Role plays of board and stakeholder sessions
- Knowledge checks and quizzes
- A personal action plan
Cohorts are kept small so every exercise is worked on the participants’ own situations — in person or live virtual.
The faculty profile for your cohort is sent with the full agenda and the next dates when you enquire.Request brochure →
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In their words
Knowledge transfer, emphasised throughout
“We worked with BIZENIUS for our Fresh Graduates Programme — they are simply amazing. Knowledge transfer and practical learning were emphasised throughout.”
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From the Mandate Record
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The training programme that became national regulation
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The Capability Arc™
Fix it · Advisory
Sustainable & Transition Finance Advisory
When the institution wants the work done with it — the approach to transition finance, the criteria for judging client plans, and the governance the credit committee and supervisor will expect.
Learning is one point on the Capability Arc. Many institutions pair this programme with the advisory engagement — and automate what the framework demands.
Teams from these institutions train with BIZENIUS
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View programmeBackground reading on this subject
Written by the practitioners who lead the programme — read before you enquire.
Banking & Finance
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