A new dataset released by the German environmental and human rights organisation, Urgewald, has shown that Indian banks cut their coal financing by 19%, from $3.5 billion in 2022 to $2.8 billion in 2025, but cautions that the fall is unlikely to be lasting, because very few Indian banks have adopted coal restrictions.
"This drop likely signifies that the country’s massive build-out of solar and wind capacity is now outpacing investments in new coal capacity", it claimed, though regretting, "Up to now, however, only 2 out of India’s top 30 banks – Federal Bank and RBL Bank – have adopted explicit coal exclusion or phase-out policies. Several others such as Axis Bank or IDFC have only made weak commitments towards limiting their total exposure to 'carbon-intensive sectors'."
At the same time, Urgewald said, total bank financing to Indian companies also fell, from $4.2 billion in 2022 to $3.1 billion in 2025, so the decline in coal lending sits within a broader drop in bank lending to Indian companies.
Data show that the State Bank of India has been the largest lender to India’s coal-based energy projects, followed by Trust Group, ICICI Bank, Bank of Baroda, Axis Bank, and others. Major recipients of these loans included the Adani Group, NTPC Ltd, NLC India Ltd, JSW Energy Ltd, Indian Railways, Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation Ltd, Tata Power Co Ltd, Coal India Ltd, SEIL Energy India Ltd, Torrent Power Ltd, GMR Power and Urban Infra Ltd, and Gujarat Industries Power Co Ltd.
Urgewald, which targets the money behind what it considers destructive projects, seeks to expose the corporations, banks, insurers and institutional investors that fund them and works to cut off those financial flows.
Global bank lending to coal is flat at about $117 billion a year since Glasgow, the Urgewald dataset shows. The dataset tracks loans and underwriting from 744 commercial banks to companies across the coal value chain. Between 2022 and 2025, they provided $467 billion to the industry. The four years follow COP26 in Glasgow, where governments agreed to accelerate the phase-down of coal and financial institutions made high-profile net-zero pledges. Annual financing has stayed broadly flat at around $117 billion, but the total hides a growing rift within the banking industry. The money is also highly concentrated by home country: Chinese banks account for 62% ($289 billion), US banks for 14% ($67 billion) and Japanese banks for 6% ($28 billion).
Several Asian banking sectors cut back sharply. Taiwanese banks reduced financing by 53%, from $0.9 billion to $0.4 billion, after introducing or strengthening coal restriction policies. Philippine banks cut theirs by 73%, from $0.8 billion to $0.2 billion, and eight of them have adopted coal restriction policies in recent years. Malaysian banks cut financing by 88%, from $0.7 billion to $0.1 billion, with at least two major banks adopting restrictions. Thai banks reduced theirs by 74%, from $0.8 billion to $0.2 billion, and several have adopted "no new coal" policies or set targets to cut exposure over time.
Japanese banks, despite weak coal policies, saw financing fall from $8.7 billion in 2022 to $5.8 billion in 2024. It rebounded to $6.8 billion in 2025, which is still 20% below 2022.
Some 54% of Japanese bank financing goes to coal companies outside Japan, so the banks' decisions matter for the international coal fleet as well as for Japan's own energy system.
In Europe, EU banks cut coal financing by 46%, from $4.8 billion in 2022 to $2.6 billion in 2025. Almost all European banks with meaningful coal exposure in 2022 reduced it, with the exceptions of Barclays and HSBC, which both increased their coal financing. UK banks remain Europe's largest source of coal finance at $8.3 billion since 2022, ahead of German banks ($4.9 billion) and French banks ($3.4 billion).
The overall pattern worries Urgewald. "Coal financing is not disappearing – but it is concentrating in banks and markets where coal policies are either missing or weak," said Heffa Schücking, Director of Urgewald.
That concentration is clearest in the banks that increased their coal financing. Chinese banks raised theirs by 8%, from $69 billion in 2022 to $75 billion in 2025, and provide 83% of global bank financing to companies with coal expansion plans. China's new 15th Five-Year Plan calls for "promoting the peaking of coal" but still allows consumption to grow in the power and coal-to-chemicals sectors. Some 99% of Chinese banks' coal financing goes to companies headquartered in China. A few Chinese banks restrict coal finance abroad, but only one Chinese financial institution restricts financing for domestic coal.
US banks raised coal financing by 23%, from $13.6 billion in 2022 to $16.7 billion in 2025. The three largest US coal financiers all increased lending, and all three have, in Urgewald's words, "essentially gutted their coal and climate policies in recent years." Bank of America, the top US coal financier, rose 62%, from $1.4 billion to $2.3 billion. JPMorgan Chase rose 45%, from $1.5 billion to $2.2 billion, and Wells Fargo rose 59%, from $1.2 billion to $1.9 billion.
Indonesian banks increased financing by 64%, from $1.4 billion to $2.3 billion, but this only partly fills the gap left by international banks, many of which ended their support for Indonesia's coal sector after adopting coal restriction policies. South Korean banks more than doubled their financing (up 111%), from $0.8 billion to $1.75 billion, a rise that Urgewald says "seems to mainly be driven by the financial needs of South Korea's national power company, KEPCO."
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