Europe's largest bank HSBC is cutting its ties to palm oil companies destroying forests and peatlands.  This comes after Greenpeace linked it to plantation companies destroying the forests of Indonesia, the world's top producer of palm oil.

"Our rainforest is being carved up at a frightening rate and high street banks all over the world are funding this destruction," said Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaigner Annisa Rahmawati.  "Coming from the world's sixth-largest bank, HSBC's new policy provides impetus for the rest of the banking sector to stop financing destructive palm oil companies."

The Greenpeace report "Dirty Bankers" accused the UK-headquartered bank of providing US$16.3 Billion in financing for six companies since 2012 that have grabbed community lands and illegally cleared forests to plant oil palm trees on carbon-rich peat soil.  That report sparked outrage around the world, inspiring hundreds of thousands of people to sign petitions that were delivered to bank officials.  There were also protests at HSBC branches in Australia, the UK, and Europe.  And CEO Stuart Gulliver faced questions about the pressure campaign in front of world leaders and other company bosses at the World Economic Forum in Davos.  All of this added up to some serious incentives for HSBC to change its ways.

HSBC's new "No Deforestation, No Peat and No Exploitation" (NDPE) policy specifies that it will no longer provide funding to companies involved in any kind of deforestation or peatland clearance.  In addition, the bank is insisting customers must publish their own forest protection policies by the end of June and to provide independent verification of their own NDPE by the end of next year. 

Campaigners are vowing to monitor the situation, but HSBC it "will not agree new financing facilities to customers who have not made the appropriate commitment".

Greenpeace has now written to ANZ, Bank of America, and Standard Chartered banks to enact their own versions of NDPE, stating that "without a proper policy, monitoring and enforcement, it is inevitable that your bank will be financing deforestation".