Middle East governments must innovate to unlock green investment in region, study advises

RIYADH: American investment company BNY Mellon is organizing a series of international campaigns to attract and facilitate investments in Saudi Arabia, according to a top official.

The company has collaborated with SNB Capital Co., the Saudi Ministry of Investment and Tadawul to put the Kingdom on the global financial map.

“Our campaign in London was held with large investment managers who have already invested in Saudi or are interested in increasing their exposure in the Kingdom,” Hani Kablawi, chairman of international at BNY Mellon, told Arab News in an exclusive interview. 

Global investment managers, already contracted with BNY Mellon, want to access KSA and know they can do that by simply extending their relationship with us.

Hani Kablawi, Chairman of international at BNY Mellon

“This series of campaigns will take us to New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore,” he added.

Kablawi noted that the campaign in London was to “strengthen connections and help investors understand how they could access markets or increase their exposure to them.”

While sharing his views on facilitating investments in the Kingdom, Kablawi said BNY Mellon’s role was to guide potential investors.

“Our role is to help prevent obstacles from getting in the way administratively for investors interested in investing in Saudi,” he said. 

Kablawi added that these upcoming campaigns would happen this year and next year. He also clarified that the time frames would be fixed after discussing with Saudi partners who will also be a part of these campaigns.

During the interview, Kablawi noted that the association between SNB Capital and BNY Mellon could help access over 100 global markets globally.

He added that several global investors are exploring the opportunity to venture into the Saudi market by extending their relationship with BNY Mellon.

“Global investment managers, already partnered and contracted with BNY Mellon, want to access Saudi Arabia and know they can do that by simply extending their relationship with us,” said Kablawi.

He explained: “It is a cross-border arrangement enabling Saudi investors to access global markets and enabling global investment managers to access Saudi.”

Glen Fernandes, BNY Mellon regional global client management for the Middle East and Africa region, said: “In today’s world, Saudi Arabia has a lot of opportunities. We’ve seen a robust IPO pipeline that’s developing and many big projects are going on in Saudi Arabia. Investors are paying interest and watching that closely.”

Kablawi also mentioned the complexity of investing sustainably and factoring in Environmental, Social and Governance considerations, given the lack of harmonized taxonomy, standardized global regulations and disclosure.

“Once there are well-accepted, sustainable accounting standards and greater availability of consistent, accurate ESG data globally, investors can make better-informed, data-driven decisions. But, unfortunately, that is still an obstacle today,” he further noted.

In October 2020, SNB Capital, formerly NCB Capital, announced its entry into an alliance with BNY Mellon, one of the largest investment services companies in the world.

SNB Capital is the securities, asset management, and investment banking arm of Saudi National Bank, the Kingdom’s largest commercial bank.

In August 2021, BNY Mellon and SNB Capital announced they had launched integrated global securities services capabilities to institutional and large asset owners based in the Kingdom.

BNY Mellon’s association with SNB Capital grew further as they launched transformative data management solutions in the Kingdom in December 2021 to help build a robust, market-leading and inclusive capital markets ecosystem. In October 2021, during the FII Summit in Riyadh, Kablawi said that BNY aims to make SNB Capital the local champion across investment management and investment services.

“We’ve put our hands together so that we get the best of BNY Mellon globally and SNB Capital locally as a national champion in reaching and supporting institutional investors here in the Kingdom,” he said.

He added that digitization is crucial for BNY Mellon due to the amount of data it has in its systems. It also helps its clients make more informed decisions, investment, risk, operational oversight, marketing and distributing decisions.