Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ has tied up with 29 regional banks to boost syndicated loans to finance environment-related businesses, bank officials said Thursday.
The major bank, which has so far granted some 100 loan applications related to environmental preservation, will seek to increase such lending by several billion yen during fiscal 2007 through next March from 120 billion yen in the previous business year, they said.
Under the project, it will provide the regional banks with knowhow for examining loan applications from corporate borrowers planning to embark on environment preservation-related businesses, they said.
Many regional lenders have been hesitant in extending such loans due to the paucity of experience in screening applications from environment-related businesses, including builders of wind power-based electricity generation plants and resource recyclers.