HSBC announced today that it has created a new sustainable finance unit to further develop its global banking and markets (GBM) business’ sustainable finance initiatives.

The new division will be led from London, with resources in New York and Hong Kong.

It will be run by Christian Deseglise, global head of central bank and reserve managers and global co-head of sovereign and public funds, and Michael Ellam, managing director of HSBC’s public sector banking team in its financial institutions group. They will continue in these roles in addition to their new responsibilities.

Both Deseglise and Ellam will report to Andre Brandao, Thibaut de Roux, Robin Phillips and Matthew Westerman on this initiative.

“The unit will act as a central point of coordination,” said Samir Assaf, GBM CEO at HSBC, in an internal note to staff today. “Business lines will remain responsible for product development and delivery, as well as client coverage.”

The new unit will provide support to coverage and advisory banks to develop content, work with product development teams, and with the global markets business to help them mobilise sources of sustainable finance.

In, Deseglise and Ellam will co-chair a new business development working group under HSBC’s Climate Business Council (CBC), chaired by Andrew Brandao. 

The bank said it would share further details on the selected individuals for this group in due course.