partners through a membership programme. 9. the programme aims to connect banks that are aware of the urgency in green finance and are committed to mainstream green banking to help tackle climate change. the programme will ( i ) create a one - stop knowledge hub, ( ii ) forge a community of practice and innovation, ( iii ) deploy advisory support for green transformation, and ( iv ) promote green investment and financing activities. 10. as a first step, we are pleased to formally launch the alliance ’ s membership programme by inviting five leading banks in asia with demonstrated achievements in green finance to join as cornerstone members. 11. they are, in alphabetical order, bank of china ( hong kong ), citi, credit agricole cib, hsbc, and standard chartered. 12. the cornerstone members are committed to making further progress in mainstreaming green finance, achieving carbon neutrality, and having an environmental, social and climate risk management system. 13. they will also support the alliance ’ s strategy and outreach plans to expand the membership network, promote green finance market and product development, and spearhead knowledge sharing and thought leadership activities. 14. the alliance also seeks to amplify the synergy by bringing in institutions that are engaged in cutting - edge research, capacity building, and standard - setting related to green finance. 15. we are delighted to announce that carbon trust, the institute of public and environmental affairs, and the resource and environment branch of china national institute of standardization have joined the alliance as global partners. 16. we are also honoured to have the university of chicago joining the alliance as a knowledge partner to assist the asia chapter ’ s training and thought leadership efforts. 17. collectively, our cornerstone members, global partners and knowledge partner will forge a community of practice to support the green transformation of commercial banks in asia. 18. today we are also publishing the alliance ’ s first thought leadership paper, in collaboration with the hong kong institute for monetary and financial research. the paper presents a curated overview of the effects of climate risk on financial institutions and financial markets, methods for measuring climate risk, the evolving practices as well as regulatory initiatives that seek to address climate risk. 19. ladies and gentlemen, we are excited to embark on the transition path with the alliance members and partners. we are confident that the learning and sharing among peers will encourage cross - fertilisation of ideas and the continued advancement of green finance best practices. starting from hong kong, we wish to create a lasting ripple effect in

of the impact that this is having on some areas which may not surface immediately. from our supervisory dialogue with banks, two notable impacts on bank culture caused by the pandemic situation are particularly worth our attention. 4. first, the pandemic disruptions may be taking away the momentum of culture effort which banks have been investing a lot in the past 4 - 5 years. for example, we have seen difficulties from banks in arranging promotion of risk culture and cascading the “ tone from the top ” to different levels of staff, simply because of the lack of f2f interactions. this has tremendously reduced the opportunities for staff to build rapport and foster a common culture, which is an important element in the culture promotion efforts. 5. secondly, the pandemic disruptions have effectively put bank culture under stress test. against the new mode of banking operation with significantly reduced f2f interactions, both amongst banking staff and between banks and their customers, there are signs of increasing hurdles in maintaining a sound bank culture. 6. on one hand, there are challenges in ensuring robust controls in a non - f2f environment. 1 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches reduced physical oversights of staff activities by supervisors could greatly reduce the effectiveness of conventional control mechanisms and practices that worked well in the past, and thereby increased the risk of poor customer outcomes. 7. at the same time, the pandemic is driving changes in customer behavior. customers have tried to avoid visiting bank branches in person as much as they can. if we look deeper at the statistics, the customer behavior of investment activities registered a significant change in the past two years. the proportion of online investment transactions out of all channels of retail banks has increased from 37 % in the first half of 2019 to over 50 % in the first half of this year. an even bigger increase was noted in long term insurance policies sold through digital channels by retail banks, which more than doubled in the first half of this year when compared with the second half of 2019. 8. some may argue that the rising trend in the use of non - f2f channels for distributing banking services would have continued with or without covid. but we could not deny the fact that the pandemic has injected a strong catalyst into this trend. so while we all embrace technology, and very much enjoy the convenience brought about by that, also we must not lose sight of the additional conduct risks involved. we have seen complaints, for example, that