An Australian bank, with, 185,000 customers has announced its decision to stop offering loans for new fossil fuel cars from 2025 as part of efforts to encourage more people to buy electric vehicles.
Only 2% of new cars sold in Australia last year were low-emissions vehicles, compared with 9% globally.
The customer-owned Bank Australia is expected to announce the self-imposed ban at a national EV summit in Canberra on Friday. The bank argues that it is a responsible step to ensure its lending practices did not “lock our customers into higher carbon emissions and increasingly expensive running costs”.
Its chief impact officer, Sasha Courville was quoted as saying that the bank would continue to fund loans for second-hand cars with internal combustion engines as it recognised not everyone would be able to afford an EV in three years.
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“We’ve chosen 2025 because the change to electric vehicles needs to happen quickly and we believe it can with the right supporting policies in place to bring a greater range of more affordable electric vehicles to Australia,” she said.
She however said that the announcement would send a message that “if you’re considering buying a new car you should think seriously about an electric vehicle, both for its impact on the climate and for its lifetime cost savings”.
The country’s climate change minister Chris Bowen is expected to tell the summit that the Albanese government has written to the states and territories inviting them to work together on a national EV strategy, including considering the introduction of vehicle fuel efficiency standards to drive the uptake of cleaner cars.
Some part of Bowen’s speech made available to the media ahead of the event revealed that the strategy would aim to improve affordability and choice by expanding the local EV market.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
