money

Ecobank is betting that saving African biodiversity is good business — and investors are all in.

In May, Togo’s Ecobank became the first commercial bank in Africa to issue a nature bond, mobilizing $450 million that will primarily be utilized to finance sustainable agriculture, biodiversity, and water infrastructure across sub-Saharan Africa. Floated at the main market of the London Stock Exchange, it is being touted as the world’s first commercial bank-issued nature bond that meets standards set by the International Capital Market Association (ICMA).

The ICMA last year introduced the nature bond label as a secondary designation under its Green Bond Principles framework. Ecobank thus becomes the first commercial bank to issue a green bond with the nature bond label.

The offering creates a new route for investors who want to help protect the continent’s biodiversity. Home to 1.5 billion people — about 20% of the global population — Africa hosts 25% of global biodiversity, although it has lost nearly a quarter of its pre-industrial total, according to a study by the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC).

Conflicts, perennial food insecurity, economic instability, and stunted development are among the culprits, and action is only becoming more urgent as the climate crisis worsens, yet Africa receives less than 3% of global nature finance.

Given the challenge, the Ecobank bond has generated unprecedented excitement. The 10.25-year, Tier 2 eurobond was oversubscribed nearly four times, attracting order books in excess of $1.36 billion against an initial target of $350 million. Owing to the overwhelming demand, Ecobank decided to increase the transaction by $100 million and tighten pricing by 50 basis points. Moody’s awarded the transaction its SQS1 Excellent score, the highest possible sustainability quality mark.  

“This transaction is a defining moment for African sustainable finance,” said Jeremy Awori, Ecobank CEO. “Investors did not just support this bond. They demanded more of it, allowing us to increase the size and tighten pricing.”

Biodiversity Investors

FMO, the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank, was the anchor investor with a $50 million participation, noting that the bond aligns with its strategy of supporting green and sustainable finance that contributes to biodiversity in sub-Saharan Africa. It was the second time FMO has served as anchor investor for an Ecobank transaction. In 2021, it invested a similar amount in the bank’s inaugural $350 million Tier 2 sustainability notes.

Finnfund was another major investor, with a $15 million ticket; the bond falls in line with the Finnish development financier and impact investor’s broader focus on safeguarding biodiversity.

“By supporting investments that promote sustainable land use and protect natural resources, Finnfund aims to contribute to preserving the natural capital that economies and livelihoods depend on,” said Ulla-Maija Rantapuska, Finnfund’s senior investment manager, in a prepared statement.

For Ecobank, the nature bond’s debut was timely, enabling it to refinance its outstanding $350 million of 8.75% notes, which are due to mature in June 2031. The proceeds of the transaction will be ring-fenced to support smallholder farmers adopting sustainable agricultural practices. Additionally, the funds will back agri-processors with verified deforestation-free supply chains. Funding will also target water infrastructure protecting freshwater ecosystems that millions of people rely upon.

Ecobank operates in 34 sub-Saharan African countries, where it boasts 32 million customers and $801 million in pre-tax profits as of last year; it has identified 24 markets as key for biodiversity lending. Critical lending criteria favor countries where agricultural land-use change is the primary driver of biodiversity loss.

John Njiraini is a contributing correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.

After years of skepticism, agentic AI is reshaping how CFOs run their organizations.

Working in conjunction, global accountancy and advisory firm PwC and OpenAI are bringing agentic AI to CFOs and their organizations. They promise that their agents can deliver benefits to the planning, forecasting, reporting, procurement, payments, treasury, and tax functions of financial organizations. 

The technology is no longer seen as emerging—it is now widely accepted as an essential tool for optimizing operations and driving long-term growth.

As recently as October 2025, AI remained controversial. Deloitte in Australia faced a reported $290,000 judgment after it submitted a report to Australia’s Department of Employment and Workplace Relations that included a range of generative AI hallucinations, prompting litigation. Such incidents made accountants wary of the technology and its shortcomings.

Nevertheless, appreciation for AI input has rapidly evolved, with a little help from human touch. PwC and OpenAI have clearly defined roles: AI agents execute and coordinate work, while PwC employees supervise—a structure designed to reduce the risk of hallucinations.

Proposal Relies On Real-World Experiences

OpenAI is presented as “customer zero.” The company uses its ChatGPT AI chatbot and Codex software coding agent in its own financial organization, where they “monitor payments, review contracts, update forecasts, and prepare reporting materials,” according to a prepared statement. Meanwhile, PwC implements that know-how in other companies. The lessons learned at OpenAI will help other CFOs.

Some of the complex corporate workflows that AI agents have managed, according to OpenAI officials, include processing five times more contracts without adding professionals to the existing team, and managing more than 200 investor interactions during a fundraising event. 

PwC and OpenAI appear to have mastered the path to deploying agentic workflows.

Nevertheless, in this rapidly evolving new world, PwC doesn’t work exclusively with OpenAI. The firm recently announced another collaboration with OpenAI rival Anthropic. PwC is offering its large client portfolio access to Anthropic’s Claude AI assistant. Financial services, pharmaceuticals, and life sciences clients are particularly interested in Claude’s efficiencies, according to PwC. In the insurance sector, underwriting cycles could be reduced from weeks to days. In cybersecurity, agents respond to threats in minutes rather than hours. The reimagining of the CFO’s office is just beginning.

Protests escalate in La Paz over President Rodrigo Paz’s new energy privatization law.

The Bolivian government has proposed a new Electricity and Renewable Energy Law, which it says aims to open the electricity market to private competition, promote clean energy, and attract foreign investment by permitting private companies to bid on public tenders.

The proposal arrives as the government faces a national crisis. Energy privatization is one of the issues at stake.

The possibility of privatization and the loss of natural resources to foreign control are among the issues protesters have targeted during a vast national strike. As the work stoppage entered its third week, miners, teachers, unionized workers, and campesinos converged on the capital, La Paz.

Food shortages, rising fuel prices, and inflation have sparked further discontent, leading to calls for President Rodrigo Paz to resign. Running on the slogan “Capitalism for all,” Bolivia elected Paz president in October during a historic runoff election.

New Law Challenges Strikers’ Demands

At a press conference, Hydrocarbons and Energy Minister Marcelo Blanco said that allowing private companies to import and export energy products would end ENDE’s state-run electricity monopoly.

“With this new law, we move from a market largely controlled by the state to a competitive market and, above all, one that gives the private sector its proper role,” he said.

The proposed law still must undergo institutional scrutiny, legislative debate, and input from civil society. Under its terms, ENDE would remain the system operator, while private companies could compete in electricity generation, transmission, and distribution. A new independent body, the Energy Regulatory Entity, would ensure transparency and regulatory compliance.

The proposed legislation would replace a 1994 law that Blanco said is now outdated: “Furthermore, the current law does not take into account renewables and storage, so we must adapt it to the new reality.”

The proposed law aligns with a regional trend toward modernizing the electricity sector, which has included public tenders for billing, renewable energy generation, and the import and export of energy to neighboring countries. Sixteen countries are working toward 80% renewable electricity by 2030 under the RALC (Renewables in Latin American Countries) initiative.

“We are pursuing energy diversification through the incorporation of non-conventional renewable energy, universal access to electricity, and ensuring that access is equitable and participatory,” Blanco said.

Major US banks proved resilient under the Fed’s severe 2026 stress test scenario.

This year’s Federal Reserve Stress Test, which involved 32 U.S. banks, simulated a hypothetical real estate Armageddon in which commercial real estate prices fell 39%, housing prices declined 30%, unemployment spiked to 10%, and economic output dropped commensurately.

The results were encouraging.

Capital declined only 1.6 percentage points in aggregate, according to a Federal Reserve Board statement. All of the banks remained at their minimum common equity Tier 1 capital requirements despite having $708 billion in total hypothetical loan losses.

Of the projected losses, the Fed identified approximately $200 billion in credit card losses, $160 billion in commercial and industrial loan losses, and $75 billion in commercial real estate losses.

“Today’s results underscore the strength of the banking system,” Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle W. Bowman said in a prepared statement. “As we work to increase the transparency and accountability of the stress test, public feedback will help us continue to improve and instill greater confidence in the stress test and its results.”

Compared to last year’s stress test, this one saw a larger decline in aggregate capital due to higher loan losses stemming from increased loan balances and the greater severity of certain test variables, and lower projected unrealized gains in bank securities resulting from smaller hypothetical interest rate declines in the scenario.

The results, however, showed a projected increase in capital from higher interest income driven by recent bank financial performance, offset by the same hypothetical interest rate declines.

Regardless of their results, participating banks will not need to adjust their stress capital buffers since the Fed voted to maintain the current requirements until 2027.

Test Format Change

“This year marks the transition between the Federal Reserve’s existing stress test framework and an updated one that aims to enhance transparency, reduce volatility, and provide opportunities for public comment on the models and scenarios,” said Greg Baer, president and CEO of the Bank Policy Institute, in a statement. “We hope that the revised framework will shed more light on the inputs and provide more certainty. We have also recommended that the most recent Basel proposal be updated to eliminate overlaps with the stress test. These combined changes will allow banks to plan capital more efficiently and support more lending and capital markets financing.”

The Fed opened the 2026 test scenario for comments in October 2025 to improve transparency while avoiding litigation it faced in previous years over opacity and defects in the test itself.

“Capital requirements should not be set in a way that is shielded from meaningful public scrutiny,” the Fed’s Bowman said. “As vice chair for supervision, I am committed to providing transparency and accountability for both the Board and our supervised firms. This is essential for maintaining the value of our stress testing program, and for supervision and regulation more broadly.”

Contact the author at rdaly@gfmag.com