Bangladesh · Green Finance
Bangladesh's green-finance portfolio has expanded rapidly, but lending patterns remain heavily weighted towards industrial efficiency projects.
Data current to 22 July 2026. Bangladesh Bank figures cover the quarter to 31 December 2025, its latest published review.
Shares are of green loans outstanding at 31 Dec 2025 (Bangladesh Bank); the other 50.76% sits in other green categories. Grid share: World Bank, published 22 July 2026 (period not stated). 2025 disbursement met 44.78% of Bangladesh Bank’s own target.
Core finding
Three questions form the spine of the story: the portfolio is large, the renewable share is small, and the power targets sit far ahead of how banks actually lend.
A growing green book is not a growing renewable book.
Outstanding green finance stands at Tk 77,140.22 crore. Energy efficiency holds 41.4%. Renewable energy holds 7.84%. The efficiency book is 5.28× larger. The remaining 50.76% sits in other green categories, such as green establishments and liquid-waste management.
A green taxonomy can call both an efficient boiler and a solar plant beneficial. It cannot make capital follow the power mix Bangladesh says it wants.
4.2× since 2021 — and still short of the regulator’s target.
Disbursement has grown more than 4.2× since 2021, yet 2025 met only 44.78% of Bangladesh Bank’s own annual target, and dipped slightly below 2024. Growth without a renewable tilt still leaves the transition underfunded.
1.5% of generation today vs 20% by 2030.
Policy wants renewables at 20% of electricity by 2030 and 30% by 2040. Today they supply about 1.5% of national grid supply. Banks are not failing a climate label. They are matching cash-flow profiles they already know how to underwrite.
How to read this story
The Split
Scroll through each branch. Widths are drawn to exact scale. Click a ribbon anytime to follow that category across the rest of the story.
Scroll the split
Whole stock
Tk 77,140.22 cr · 100%
Of Tk 77,140.22 crore outstanding, three branches tell the story. Scroll to walk each slice.
Whole stock
Tk 77,140.22 cr · 100%
Of Tk 77,140.22 crore outstanding, three branches tell the story. Scroll to walk each slice.
Scroll to continue
The ratio to remember
By the Numbers
Switch charts, then click a bar. Every panel keeps a sticky detail aside so the figure is never stranded from its meaning.
Interactive charts
Five views of the same gap: disbursement shortfall, quarterly gap, sustainable mix, power capacity, and refinance flow.
All bars share one scale, set by the 2025 target. The target applies to 2025 only; we do not have targets for earlier years. 2025 disbursement was slightly below 2024.
Source: Bangladesh Bank quarterly sustainable-finance review, October–December 2025 (40 of 61 banks and 10 of 34 finance companies recorded green-finance exposure in the quarter); BPDB Energy Scenario 2024-25; SREDA; World Bank.
Growth without a renewable tilt
Why Efficiency Is Easier to Bank
Pick a side to open its explore list. Further down, move money between the two books and watch how far the scale has to travel before it balances.
Energy Efficiency · 41.4% · Tk 31,931.42 cr
A balance-sheet loan to a known company. Click a point.
Selected point
Efficiency is a loan to a company banks already know. The saving shows up against a current fuel bill, often within months — a payback of about 3 years that fits a normal lending horizon.
The efficiency book is 5.28× larger because it fits how banks already lend.
Illustrative only. The total stays Tk 77,140.22 cr at 31 Dec 2025. No lender has moved this money; nothing here is a forecast.
On the record
“After we buy a machine, the central bank sometimes says the fund is not available. We then have to go to commercial banks for a high-cost loan, which creates a barrier to renewable-energy growth.”
“Financial institutions often do not have credit profiles for rural people interested in small-scale renewable-energy projects. They consider this group of borrowers risky and show less interest in providing loans.”
“Existing sustainable-finance policies, refinance schemes and incentives have unintentionally reinforced this bias by rewarding short-term, balance-sheet-friendly efficiency gains rather than patient capital for renewables.”
Structural, not moral
The Refinance Design Problem
Bangladesh Bank’s refinance window prices customer loans at no more than 5%, but participating banks must lend first and seek reimbursement after. Scroll the four-step path, switch tickets, and at the last step choose what happens.
How refinance sequences
Scroll or click a step. Switch tickets to change what rides along.
Step 01 of 04
The participating lender makes the credit decision and holds the repayment risk.
Bank carries the riskRepayment on the loan.
Riding along: a ~Tk 100 cr efficiency ticket, large enough to justify the wait.
Scroll to continue
Same money, more files
What-if · not a projectionEvery loan file runs the four-step path above. Pick an amount to place and count the files.
To place Tk 1,000 cr, a bank appraises 10 efficiency files or 100 rooftop-solar files, each one facing the same wait for reimbursement.
Illustrative, using the typical ticket sizes cited in our reporting (efficiency ~Tk100 cr, rooftop solar ~Tk10 cr). At the Tk300 cr upper end of efficiency asks, the gap is wider still.
Borrower proposal
“After we buy a machine, the central bank sometimes says the fund is not available. We then have to go to commercial banks for a high-cost loan, which creates a barrier to renewable-energy growth.”
The Power Reality
Policy aims for renewables to supply 20% of electricity by 2030 and 30% by 2040. On 22 July 2026 the World Bank put their share of national grid supply at about 1.5%, without stating the period it covers.
2026 · Observed
Renewables were about 1.5% of national grid supply. Source: World Bank, published 22 July 2026.
We plot only dated readings. Our sources give no annual series for this share, so no trend line is drawn. Hover or tap a year to inspect it; targets show how far the latest reading falls short. The curved arrows are our calculation of the constant yearly growth each target requires from the latest reading, placed in 2026, the year it was published. They are not a trend or a forecast.
Explore further
The main story stops at the stock split, the refinance sequence and the ambition timeline. The headline figure for each pathway is printed below; open a panel for the full chart.
Needed by 2030: 5,831 MW (IEEFA) to 18,202 MW (CPD), against 1,818.86 MW installed today (SREDA, 22 Jul 2026, incl. off-grid).
Annual investment averaged US$238m (2018-2023 average). IEEFA says it must reach US$933–980m a year through 2030 and US$1.37–1.46bn a year in 2031-2040, roughly 4–6× the historical pace.
Accountability
The gap is in published figures, not in a label. Three institutions already hold the records this story uses. What follows is what those records show, and who spoke on the record to the reporter.
Its own review is the source of the 5.28× gap: Tk 31,931.42 crore in efficiency against Tk 6,045.37 crore in renewables at 31 Dec 2025. It also set the 2025 disbursement target. Lenders met 44.78% of it, and 2025 came in slightly below 2024. The refinance window still asks banks to lend first and seek reimbursement later.
Across all 61 banks and 34 finance companies, efficiency is 41.4% of green loans outstanding and renewable energy is 7.84%. In Q4 2025, only 40 banks and 10 finance companies recorded any green-finance exposure at all.
BPDB counts grid-connected renewables. SREDA counts a larger total once off-grid plants are included. Neither number is the share of electricity people actually receive. The World Bank put renewables at about 1.5% of national grid supply on 22 July 2026. The three institutions do not publish one reconciled figure.
On the record for this story: Md Saleuddin Zaman Khan (Managing director, NZ Apparels), Shafiqul Alam (Energy analyst, IEEFA) and Zakir Hossain Khan (Chief executive, Change Initiative). Their words are quoted in full under Why efficiency is easier to bank.
This interactive does not include a reply from Bangladesh Bank or from the banks as institutions, and nothing here is written as if they responded. Bangladesh Bank, SREDA, BPDB, the Power Division and any lender are invited to respond through Renew Earth News. Replies will be added here with the date received. The seven reforms below are the changes their own figures point to.
What would change the mix
Bangladesh’s banks are responding rationally to the incentives in front of them, and the result is misaligned with where the power sector needs to go. Until those conditions change, the 5.28× outstanding gap is a measure of the distance between ambition and the capital structure the transition requires.
The other 50.76% of the book sits in other green categories.
In green loans outstanding at 31 Dec 2025, efficiency is 5.28× the renewable book. New lending in Q4 2025 alone ran 9.8× in efficiency’s favour, but that is one quarter, not a trend.
A dedicated renewable-energy finance window
Ring-fence a facility so renewables stop competing with every other green product, with published annual allocations and disbursement data.
Conditional pre-approval, not reimbursement uncertainty
Reserve refinance funds once appraisal is complete so borrowers know low-cost finance is committed before ordering equipment.
Partial credit guarantees
Cover a defined share of principal for borrowers without conventional collateral while keeping lenders' credit discipline intact.
Match tenor to asset life
Longer-tenor taka finance with realistic grace periods makes project cash flow, not unrelated property, the basis for repayment.
Standardise contracts and appraisal
Model PPAs, rooftop leases, engineering standards and due-diligence templates cut transaction costs and build bank capacity.
Share off-taker, currency and construction risk
Payment-security mechanisms, blended finance and currency facilities allocate risk to whoever can best manage it.
Publish one reconciled energy-finance dashboard
BB, SREDA, BPDB and the Power Division should link disbursement to commissioned projects and distinguish capacity from generation.
Methodology
The definitions, dates and calculations behind every figure in this story.
Every headline number, the date it refers to, and where it comes from. Ratios marked “Calculated” use only the two figures named in that row.
| Figure | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Green loans outstanding | 77140.22 Tk crore | 31 Dec 2025 | Bangladesh Bank, quarterly sustainable-finance review, Oct–Dec 2025 |
| Energy efficiency outstanding | 31931.42 Tk crore | 31 Dec 2025 | Bangladesh Bank, quarterly sustainable-finance review, Oct–Dec 2025 |
| Renewable energy outstanding | 6045.37 Tk crore | 31 Dec 2025 | Bangladesh Bank, quarterly sustainable-finance review, Oct–Dec 2025 |
| Efficiency share of green book | 41.4 percent | 31 Dec 2025 | Bangladesh Bank, quarterly sustainable-finance review, Oct–Dec 2025 |
| Renewable share of green book | 7.84 percent | 31 Dec 2025 | Bangladesh Bank, quarterly sustainable-finance review, Oct–Dec 2025 |
| Other green share | 50.76 percent | 31 Dec 2025 | Bangladesh Bank, quarterly sustainable-finance review, Oct–Dec 2025 |
| Efficiency to renewable outstanding ratio | 5.28 times | 31 Dec 2025 | Calculated: 31931.42 / 6045.37 |
| Q4 2025 efficiency disbursement | 3453.76 Tk crore | Q4 2025 | Bangladesh Bank, quarterly sustainable-finance review, Oct–Dec 2025 |
| Q4 2025 renewable disbursement | 352.6 Tk crore | Q4 2025 | Bangladesh Bank, quarterly sustainable-finance review, Oct–Dec 2025 |
| Q4 2025 efficiency to renewable ratio | 9.8 times | Q4 2025 | Calculated: 3453.76 / 352.6. One quarter, not a trend. |
| Green disbursement | 30369.26 Tk crore | 2025 | Bangladesh Bank, quarterly sustainable-finance review, Oct–Dec 2025 |
| Green disbursement | 30653.78 Tk crore | 2024 | Bangladesh Bank, quarterly sustainable-finance review, Oct–Dec 2025 |
| Green disbursement | 7232.85 Tk crore | 2021 | Bangladesh Bank, quarterly sustainable-finance review, Oct–Dec 2025 |
| Bangladesh Bank disbursement target | 67820.83 Tk crore | 2025 only | Bangladesh Bank, quarterly sustainable-finance review, Oct–Dec 2025 |
| Share of 2025 target met | 44.78 percent | 2025 | Bangladesh Bank, quarterly sustainable-finance review, Oct–Dec 2025 |
| Banks with green-finance exposure | 40 of 61 banks | Q4 2025 | Bangladesh Bank, quarterly sustainable-finance review, Oct–Dec 2025 |
| Finance companies with green-finance exposure | 10 of 34 companies | Q4 2025 | Bangladesh Bank, quarterly sustainable-finance review, Oct–Dec 2025 |
| Renewables share of national grid supply | 1.5 percent | Published 22 Jul 2026 (period not stated) | World Bank |
| Grid-connected renewables excluding hydro | 764 MW | 30 Jun 2025 | BPDB, Energy Scenario of Bangladesh 2024-25 |
| Installed renewable capacity including off-grid | 1818.86 MW | 22 Jul 2026 | SREDA, National Database of Renewable Energy |
| Policy target, share of electricity | 20 percent | 2030 | Renewable Energy Policy 2025 |
| Policy target, share of electricity | 30 percent | 2040 | Renewable Energy Policy 2025 |
