It made a nice headline – HSBC promises $100bn to fight climate change. No doubt the bank’s public relations department were congratulating themselves with the writeups of its move to finance sustainable development earlier this week, and big round numbers help. But there was something far more important about HSBC’s move that has the potential to have an even greater impact.

After all, lending money is what banks do. Sure, HSBC will lend to companies that specialise in low-carbon technology, yet it might have decided to lend money to those companies anyway. The far more significant part of the bank’s announcement was that it has agreed to provide more disclosure on the topic.