Positive impact finance

In March of 2019, as a pioneering initiative, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank began offering Positive Impact Finance (PIF) loan agreement, as a loan for business companies with no restrictions on the use of funds, based on the Principles for Positive Impact Finance advocated by the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI).

PIF is a finance initiative which comprehensively analyzes and evaluates the impacts (both positive and negative) which a company’s activities have on the economy, society, and the environment. In PIF, targets are set in regard to alleviating negative impacts while maximizing positive ones and focus is placed upon continuous engagement in order to ensure the realization of these targets. The product concept and other features of PIF have been highly evaluated, and in February of 2020, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank’s PIF received the Gold Prize in the Finance Category of the Minister of the Environment’s first annual ESG Finance Awards Japan.

Since the Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank's first PIF loan agreement in March 2019, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank has engaged in a total of 52 PIF loan agreements as of March 31,2023.

In addition, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank has introduced a "Positive Impact Evaluation Framework" which enables companies subject to evaluation can refer to, when they receive financing also from other financial institutions using this framework, and was selected as a "Green Finance Model Case" by the Ministry of the Environment in FY2022.