If you live in Scotland and you are not a customer of NatWest Group, Lloyds Banking Group or Standard Life Aberdeen, you may be a customer of another British financial institution that is heavily invested in the nuclear weapons industry. Research by PAX shows that 31 British financial institutions together invested at least £33 billion in weapons producers between January 2018 and January 2020.[1]
Britain’s largest Bank, HSBC, held investments worth £7.6 billion in nuclear weapons producers during this period.[2] HSBSC has a policy covering the defence sector which states that the bank will not provide financing to companies that manufacture or sell anti-personnel mines or cluster bombs and the bank “does not provide financial services to customers who solely or primarily manufacture or sell other weapons”.[3] This means that the bank can still finance companies that are heavily involved in weapons work, but that also undertake other activities, and the policy does not specifically restrict the financing of nuclear weapons producers.
Barclays has a policy which states that it will not “finance trade in, or manufacture of, nuclear, chemical, biological or other weapons of mass destruction”.[4] However, the policy is not comprehensive and the bank made more than £6 billion available to nuclear weapons producers between January 2018 and January 2020.[5]
Action
British financial institutions should stop supporting the production of weapons of mass destruction. Please contact your bank and pension fund to urge them to adopt an investment policy that comprehensively excludes nuclear weapons producers from investment.
You can email most major British financial directly at www.investinginchange.uk/action/. See also section 8 of this report which contains a step-by-step guide on how to engage with financial institutions.
NOTES
[1] S Snyder, Problematic Profiteering: Private company involvement in nuclear weapon production and their financial backers (PAX, 2021), forthcoming.
[2] Problematic Profiteering, forthcoming.
[3] https://www.hsbc.com/-/files/hsbc/our-approach/risk-and-responsibility/pdfs/200218-defence-equipment-sector-policy.pdf?download=1.
[4] https://home.barclays/content/dam/home-barclays/documents/citizenship/our-reporting-and-policy-positions/policy-positions/Barclays-Statement-on-the-Defence-Sector.pdf.
[5] Problematic Profiteering, forthcoming.
Don't Bank on the Bomb Scotland 