Environmentally-friendly products and responsible financing
Environmental activities cover the entire product portfolio of the Bank Millennium Group. Active measures are taken to reduce the use of paper in communication with our clients in all lines of business. Clients may confirm some of the transactions ordered in branches using Mobile Authorization, which has significantly reduced the quantity of paper used for document print-outs.
Individual customers
The WWF Millennium Mastercard credit card (APR of 14.77%) is offered as part of the Bank’s long-term cooperation with the WWF Poland Foundation. The card is made with recycled plastic.
Thanks to its virtual form, the goodie eCard is a convenient and environmentally-friendly way of giving a gift. The card can be set up in just a few moments in the goodie mobile app. In addition, the goodie app affords access to the electronic versions of the store flyers of many shopping networks thereby reducing paper consumption.
Bank Millennium has investment funds pursuing social and environmental goals in its offering for affluent clients. Moreover, the Bank is regularly working on extending the investment offering it has available to clients in electronic banking channels. Presently, all investment products are made available to clients through remote channels, thereby reducing the number of documents printed in the Bank’s branches, reducing paper consumption and contributing to environmental protection. Furthermore, the option to authorize client instructions using a mobile phone was introduced in the Bank’s outlets in 2021 in processes related to investment products, which eliminates the usage of paper in these processes. In 2022, a similar solution was extended to include savings products (term deposits and savings accounts).
The Bank offers mortgage loans for renovation or modernization of properties, under which the Bank’s clients often use the funds to modernize e.g. a roof covered with eternit, replace the central heating system/furnace, etc.
Corporate customers
The Bank Millennium Group does not finance new coal mines and coal-fired power generation projects, except for new projects related to reduction of pollution. These issues are described in detail in „Environmental Policy of the Bank Millennium Group” section.
In line with the strategy for 2022-24, the Bank Millennium Group will actively support clients as they decarbonise, and will provide PLN 2 billion of financing for sustainable and transformational projects for the clients of the Bank and of the Bank’s Group over the next 3 years.
The Bank offers the Biznesmax Guarantee Program in cooperation with Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego. The guarantee is used to secure loans granted to finance innovative projects in the SME sector, including environmentally effective companies. Clients benefiting from the “environmental path” in the Biznesmax Guarantee Program may execute an investment project with at least one environmental category, e.g.: electromobility, renewable energy sources spanning PV installations, technologies to reduce energy consumption, technologies to produce alternative fuels, circular economy, installations to recover raw materials in production processes, etc.
The Bank actively expands the knowledge of its employees on financing environmentally-friendly projects. In June advisors and credit analysts in corporate banking took part in a webinar run by a law firm specializing in the renewable energy sector. The meeting was devoted to discussing the specifics of a financing transaction in the PV sector considering the industry’s legal and regulatory environment.
Millennium Leasing is consistently involved in the financing of energy savings investment projects in compliance with the Environmental Policy of the Bank Millennium Group and industrial policy. For this purpose, it uses and intends to use programs organized by EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) under which it refunds clients for a portion of financing costs for machinery and equipment on the LEME list. This list contains machinery and equipment vetted by engineers that support the reduction of CO2 emissions and energy efficiency by achieving energy savings of at least 20%. Millennium Leasing also advocates the financing of equipment to generate energy from renewable sources. Since 2019 Millennium Leasing is particularly active in developing the MilleSun program dedicated to financing PV investments. Leasing of panels is a solution targeting entrepreneurs focused on reducing the costs of electricity consumption combined with a change in social awareness in the field of environmental protection and keen on building their environmentally-friendly image on a par with the economic efficiency of investments. In the leasing of PV panels Millennium Leasing cooperates with leading reliable suppliers of these types of installations; it offers safe financing on preferential terms and conditions and a greatly simplified process to lease environmentally-friendly investment projects.
In 2022 Millennium Leasing intends to participate in the Mój Elektryk Priority Program guaranteeing co-payments from the National Environmental Protection and Water Management Fund to lease electrical vehicles towards the down-payment in agreements to lease electrical vehicles. The co-payments are up to PLN 27 thousand for passenger vehicles (M1) and up to PLN 70 thousand for delivery vehicles up to 3.5 tons, respectively. The purpose of the program is to reduce air pollution emissions by co-funding undertakings to reduce the consumption of fuel generating emissions in transport. The co-funding constitutes support and an incentive to buy/lease zero emission vehicles.
The economy’s transition and clients’ implementation of sustainable development policies will in the future be a growing source of demand for the financing offered by Millennium Leasing. We anticipate that this growth will pertain in particular to the following:
- investments in energy saving machines and equipment to reduce the quantity and the cost of electricity used per product unit,
- low emission means of transport supporting the reduction of CO2 emissions in the transportation of people and cargo,
- technologies for generating and storing energy from renewable sources.