From startups to legacy brands, you're making your mark. We're here to help.
Key Links
Prepare for future growth with customized loan services, succession planning and capital for business equipment.
Key Links
Serving the world's largest corporate clients and institutional investors, we support the entire investment cycle with market-leading research, analytics, execution and investor services.
Key Links
Providing investment banking solutions, including mergers and acquisitions, capital raising and risk management, for a broad range of corporations, institutions and governments.
Your partner for commerce, receivables, cross-currency, working capital, blockchain, liquidity and more.
Key Links
A uniquely elevated private banking experience shaped around you.
Whether you want to invest on your own or work with an advisor to design a personalized investment strategy, we have opportunities for every investor.
For Companies and Institutions
From startups to legacy brands, you're making your mark. We're here to help.
Serving the world's largest corporate clients and institutional investors, we support the entire investment cycle with market-leading research, analytics, execution and investor services.
Your partner for commerce, receivables, cross-currency, working capital, blockchain, liquidity and more.
Prepare for future growth with customized loan services, succession planning and capital for business equipment.
Providing investment banking solutions, including mergers and acquisitions, capital raising and risk management, for a broad range of corporations, institutions and governments.
For Individuals
A uniquely elevated private banking experience shaped around you.
Whether you want to invest on you own or work with an advisor to design a personalized investment strategy, we have opportunities for every investor.
Explore a variety of insights.
Key Links
Insights by Topic
Explore a variety of insights organized by different topics.
Key Links
Insights by Type
Explore a variety of insights organized by different types of content and media.
Key Links
We aim to be the most respected financial services firm in the world, serving corporations and individuals in more than 100 countries.
Key Links
J.P. Morgan Development Finance Institution (JPM DFI) was established in January 2020 to mobilize finance in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in emerging economies. JPM DFI helps corporate and sovereign clients to measure and disclose their sustainable development intentions, and helps attract sources of capital interested in financing opportunities with measurable development impact. By supporting the origination and distribution of financial products to institutional investors, acting as investors or lenders, who are interested in financing sustainable development, the JPM DFI aims to establish sustainable development as an asset class.
The JPM DFI applies its impact methodology to assess transactions with public and private sector clients and official development institutions (ODIs) that may promote economic and social/sustainable development in countries eligible to borrow from the World Bank. In particular, the JPM DFI offering includes:
Advising corporate and sovereign entities to apply the Impact disclosure guidance (2024) to measure and disclose their development impact
Using the JPM DFI methodology to assess the anticipated development impact of transactions and provide development intensity score
Supporting marketing our corporate and sovereign clients’ impact disclosures to sustainable investors
JPM DFI helps corporate entities attract and engage with sustainable pools of capital
JPM DFI helps sovereign entities attract and engage with sustainable pools of capital
JPM DFI helps institutional investors with impact and sustainability criteria to identify and engage with potential investment opportunities
At a Center for Global Development event, the Impact Disclosure Taskforce unveils guidance to aid sustainable investors in financing SDGs.
At a Center for Global Development event, the Impact Disclosure Taskforce unveils guidance to aid sustainable investors in financing SDGs.
Unpacked: Development Finance
Affordable and clean energy, widespread access to healthcare and education, quality jobs and infrastructure, safe and sustainable cities. These are pretty ambitious goals for developing countries, so how can we get there? By raising about an extra 2.5 trillion dollars of annual financing until the year 2030.
This is: Development Finance Unpacked
Back in 1944, the concept of development finance was born. Institutions like the World Bank were created to fund the rebuilding of vital infrastructure and services across efforts of war-torn European countries.
Since then, development finance has evolved into what it is today: Funding projects that improve the quality of life and well-being of people in developing countries.
In September 2000, a critical milestone took place when all United Nations members agreed on a set of development goals to achieve by 2015 called the “Millennium Development Goals.”
The idea? To rally world leaders around efforts to fight extreme poverty, expand access to quality jobs and healthcare, and more.
As 2015 approached, the United Nations formed 17 new Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030. They aimed to advance progress on things like: clean water, infrastructure, education, sustainable farming, improved mobility, and more.
Sustainability is the connecting force between them, emphasizing the necessary balance between economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection.
The estimated total investment needed to achieve the SDGs in emerging economies ranges between 3.3 to 4.5 trillion dollars per year.
Currently, we’re only half way there. According to the United Nations, there is a 2.5 trillion dollar gap of development finance – per year – until 2030.
Historically, the development financing has primarily come from public institutions, which are owned and operated by government shareholders.
It can also come from multilateral institutions, like the World Bank. They receive funding from multiple member governments and use it across projects in developing countries. Currently, around one hundred and forty countries are eligible to borrow from the World Bank.
However, this annual funding gap can’t be closed by public institutions alone. To do it the private sector – think multinational corporations or financial institutions – must play a leading role.
Private organizations can offer more capital, access to investors, structuring expertise and a global network.
It could be a direct investment like opening a factory, or a portfolio investment, like an asset manager buying a bond from a government to provide clean water.
Let’s look at an example of how development finance works. Let’s say a government agency in Saharan Africa, to build new infrastructure to provide clean water. While this may intuitively feel “developmental”, a development finance institution will thoroughly evaluate whether this qualifies as a development finance opportunity.
Certain questions could include: Will the infrastructure serve areas that struggle to access clean water? Will it be resilient to climate change? Does the agency provide quality jobs and training to employees?
If a project meets the necessary requirements, the development finance institution will connect this opportunity with potential investors – usually those interested in supporting development finance activities, like an impact investor or an ESG investment fund manager.
From there, projects that support the SDGs and have impact in developing countries, receive their needed funding and we move one step closer to closing that 2.5 trillion annual dollar gap.
[End of video]
Financing sustainable development
Nancy Lee: Companies and sovereigns in EMDEs need to be able to make the case to investors that their issuances have tangible impact, and investors need to be able to demonstrate impact to shareholders and to standard setters wary of greenwashing and other forms of overstating impact. Most of us need to be able to judge whether these flows that are labeled as ESG flows are actually contributing to the goals and the impact that we all need.
Arsalan Mahtafar: I'm going to first describe why we created the Impact Disclosure Task Force. I mean, as you know, there's no shortage of task forces in sustainable finance and sustainability. So why did we think yet another one was warranted? What was the problem that we're trying to solve? Sustainable finance is a real asset class. You know, by some measures, as Nancy mentioned, there's $41 trillion of assets under management that have some measure of ESG integrated. Most of that is ESG integration, meaning that it's more from a risk management approach, but there's about 10% that is for sustainability and impact strategies, meaning that the investors are actually seeking sustainable outcomes and want to make a change in the world. But if you look at where that money is actually flowing, most of that is going, and Nancy mentioned this, is going to developed markets. And there's a lot of reasons for that. There's market risk, there's credit risk, there's geopolitical risk, but there's non-financial reasons for that as well. If you are, let's say, a Brazilian agriculture company that has a business strategy to give better inputs to farmers to increase their agricultural productivity, to train farmers to ensure that their supply chain is free of deforestation, is free of human rights abuse.
Arsalan Mahtafar: If they might be creating good quality jobs, you might completely fly under the radar of sustainable investors because you don't check one of those two boxes. That is the problem that we tried to solve with this task force. The guidance actually envisions an ecosystem that has three components. One component is that Sustainable Development Impact Disclosure, or what we're calling SDID. And the guidance essentially gives a playbook on how entities should navigate existing resources to identify the metrics that, based on a theory of change, describes their impact intentions and helps to measure those impact intentions, then helps them do the materiality assessment to identify which ones are the ones that should be prioritized based on their local context, and then set targets for those prioritized metrics. For the negative impacts,
Arsalan Mahtafar: we should also make sure that they’re kind of adhering to the standards for do no significant harm, maintaining minimum safeguards by showing what are the policies and procedures they have in place that will help them manage environmental and social risks and mitigate negative impacts. The entity also commits to monitoring and reporting progress against those intentions. If you actually want to know what did they really achieve after they set out the vision, we envisioned a data platform where this information can be digitized, aggregated, and then disseminated at scale.
Arsalan Mahtafar: And then the last component is a network of ancillary services. Because at the end of the day, what's really important here is trust. And to enhance the trust, we're thinking about what are the third parties that can help with independent verification, with monitoring and evaluation, with analytics to ultimately decipher all that information and make sense of it. So it could be usable for investors when they want to determine whether it's eligible for their portfolios or not.
Marc-Andre Blanchard: There's no doubt in our mind that guidelines like that will actually enhance the universe of potential investments for us. I mean, that's the baseline, there's no doubt. Just think about social impacts overall. I mean, there's an issue of being able to assess and to measure impact outside of pure carbon footprint. When the information is lacking, what do you do?
Elizabeth Seager: You tend to overestimate the risk, underestimate the opportunity. I see on the task force as an observer, just making sure that we continue to build this alignment versus reinventing any wheels and participated in that context. Companies may have other stakeholders to whom they want to communicate beyond the sort of common investors, as the ISSB is focused on.
Elizabeth Seager: And so we have what we call this building block approach, where we're trying to develop the common language for companies to disclose to investors around the world, but recognize that they'll want to add on top of that in some cases. So it's in this context that we entered into the observer status of the task force to support this ongoing lack of or reduction of fragmentation and alignment as it relates to expectations for company disclosures.
Maha AlQattan: We know that there are many impact and sustainable investors out there like CDPQ who are looking for bankable long-term investment opportunities in emerging markets. The problem is, as everyone mentioned, lack of transparency, lack of market information, which really makes it very difficult for them to assess the associated risk. Many of the disclosure frameworks today fail to address the, I would say, the development impact linked with the sustainable linked finance allocation.
Maha AlQattan: What this framework does is it addresses these challenges. It gives you accountability, transparency. But it also goes further to really give companies the opportunity to report on progress against SDGs at a very local level. And finally, it does not only make you report on the positive impact, it also helps us look at the associated environmental and social risks and put mitigation plans for those risks.
Nancy Lee: There is this perception in a lot of circles that asking the investee to report more on impact, in particular in the rigorous way that Arsalan was talking about, you know, what's the baseline, what's the change, is a burden. That's not how you're describing it. So say a little bit more about why this helps you. The framework is pretty much aligned with many of the emerging reporting standards like ISSB and even with rating agencies.
Maha AlQattan: So it actually does not increase the burden of reporting because of the alignment and overlap. It just makes it easier for us to report on many of other reporting standards. You need a framework. You need to talk about where you're going to be focusing your effort, what metrics and outcomes are you hoping to get, and how are you going to report on those and how transparently and how often?
Tom Eveson: And that's why we really wanted to participate in this because that's all pre-issuance. That's all on an intent to attract capital to say when and if we raise this capital, we will allocate it to projects that are credibly green with credible possibilities of outcome and a good governance structure and reporting to do so. And that's really what the sustainable bond industry has grown up doing.
Tom Eveson: And that's from the first one several years ago to where we are now at trillions and thousands of bonds outstanding. And the questions are starting to be asked, what's the outcome? If this gives form and process to more disclosure on the benefits of some of these projects and entities in these regions, then our company will incorporate that.
Tom Eveson: And what we do is basically opine and say, these are good practices for identifying what your impact is going to be and reporting on an ongoing basis. And I can't see that being anything but beneficial to the whole industry of trying to develop more projects and moving more capital to the developing south.
[End of video]
[Music]
Introducing the Impact Disclosure Taskforce at COP28
Arsalan Mahtafar: The good news is that the volume of capital managed by sustainable investors that are seeking sustainable outcomes are continuing to grow. But at the same time, achieving the sustainable development goals and financing the sustainable development goals still remain out of reach.
So this panel will unpack this problem and introduce the Impact Disclosure Task Force, an initiative launched by a network of financial institutions to leverage the principles of impact measurement and monitoring to direct sustainable capital to where it's needed most.
John Murton: There is finance flowing towards sustainable finance, but it's primarily flowing to climate-related goals, and it's primarily flowing to developed markets, rather than emerging markets. It's much easier, for a range of reasons, to finance a solar power plant in France than it is in India, which is unfortunate, in climate terms, because the solar power plant in India will displace much more carbon than the solar power plant in France.
It's much easier to finance a solar power plant in India than it is to finance a social development project. Part of that is due to the data that's available. It's much easier to prove the impact in, say, emissions avoided for a solar power plant than it is for a water project that might serve a rural community in a developing market.
So as a result, with the lack of data, it's difficult to bring capital in. It's difficult to bring investment in to maybe where it's required most. And it's only by scaling that private sector investment, not just in solar plants in India, but in water projects, in projects to conserve biodiversity, that we're going to deliver on the development goals.
Adam Mariko: The SDG gap is quite huge. And I think the problem should not be just to call for more money. It's to change the financial system to reorient the existing money somehow to SDGs finance and sustainable finance.
John Murton: It's a network of public and private financial institutions, and capital market participants, and industry stakeholders. And what they're doing is they're drafting voluntary guidance for entity-level disclosure, so disclosure at a corporate entity level, about impact and giving us mechanisms to facilitate impact reporting across an entity and data provision so that we can then deliver financing against that.
What it will do is it will deliver, hopefully, forward-looking targets that address development gaps. So a company, an entity will develop forward-looking targets that address development gaps and are specific to their context and the markets that they operate in, which means they're going to be different in Bangladesh than in Bolivia or in Brussels. And that's really important.
And they will establish mechanisms to disseminate and analyze that entity-level impact information into digestible bites so that it will foster accountability and transparency so that investors and people considering investments will be able to understand that information and invest on the basis of it. And that gives financial institutions and decision-makers more capacity to identify where their finance, where their money will have a real impact and allocate accordingly.
Bertrand Millot: There's four things that we would look at. We would look at trying to identify intentions. Impact-- the difference between the two is intentions. It's really, really important to understand that. What are we trying to change in the world? And obviously, it has to be looked at in the context of what the problems are related to your industry or the place where you're doing business.
And then you think, OK, well, set targets. How am I going to change that? And then make sure that, obviously, you measure it, and you disclose what you intend to do, and you look at progress going forward. So that's really the difference between the two.
Ayla Bajwa: We're an end-to-end logistics solution provider. And so one of our key pillars is-- or key verticals are ports, as mentioned earlier, so ports and terminals. And so the port and terminal space is interesting because your customer is often a government. And so governments ask you, what are you going to do for my country?
And so when that becomes the question, you no longer are a project investor, as mentioned while talking about the impact disclosure framework. You're an ecosystem investor. And so when you're an ecosystem investor, you're not looking at just the asset.
You're looking at, yes, spillage, waste management, and all the rest of it, but you're also looking at coastal systems. You're looking at people positive. You're looking at nature positive. You're really looking at the full gamut. And so, today, as DP World, we are-- so I think one good example of a market that we've done this well is Berbera. So, in fact, we have a documentary that was released just a couple of hours ago that we've done with The Wall Street Journal, but it really brings what we do to life, which is we look at employment. We look at the needs of the country from an education point of view, from a from a water access point of view, and so all of it guided by something we call the "our world, our future" strategy.
And so the "our world, our future" strategy is our sustainability strategy. But if you look at the framework, it has business priorities. So we have identified business priorities and community contributions-- what we call community investment-- because we're there for the long run.
So often, the investors or other stakeholders are nervous because they need short-term return. And as DP World, we're in it for the long haul. We get it. You're going to go into the Global South? It's going to take time.
And so what actually has been positive to see-- and Berbera continues to be a good example for it-- is because we had faith in Berbera, and we invested in Berbera, and we looked at the poor-- the economic zone, the water access, the education, all of it looking, now at coral and reef restoration, the full situation, now we see other entities having the confidence to invest in Berbera.
Erin Leonard: The good news is that we do see very strong growth in sustainable investment. You may not read about that in the newspapers every day, but our own sustainable investments have grown from 1%, I think just three to four years ago, to about 10% of our total assets. So it's increasingly in focus for us.
And as part of our mission-- obviously, we're investing for returns. We're investing for our investors. But we do want to create products that are supporting the emerging economies and that are facilitating the flow of capital to the projects and the businesses that really need the money. So that's the part that makes me enjoy my job the most, I would like to say.
But back to complexity, we manage money across, I think, 12 different locations currently. We hold over 30,000 securities. So access to information and data is absolutely one of our biggest challenges.
And so initiatives like this that are going to facilitate the provision of information are absolutely critical to our day-to-day activities. And so we want to see this type of activity really take hold and become widely accepted through the industry.
I mean, it's as simple as the fact that, if we can't get sustainability information on an issuer, we are not going to invest because we just don't have the transparency. So it really is tied directly to the flow of capital.
Adam Mariko: We were very proud, in AFD, to join the task force and this discussion because, if private sector goes in this discussion alone, building norms in their own will, I think there is a faith and will to do it, but no one will believe it, somehow, because there is always this risk on saying, OK, where is the catch?
That's why, also, the public development banks and all the work and the data we are accumulating is useful to put it in the public good. And that's why AFD have pushed, also, to be there. At some point, mobilizing private capital is not just at the project level. Even the funding that we are using-- I come from the finance business of the of the bank. We issue 10 billion euro bonds every year.
And our goal is, within two years, to certify all our balance sheet SDG-aligned, which, I hope, will avoid us to justify every bonds with the reporting that goes with it. At some point, the investor should understand that investing in this balance sheet has incentive for them, and it's an aligned investment they are doing, which means we should have clear norms and data on all those perspectives.
Erin Leonard: Our approach is that we would much rather engage with companies than divest. We want to work with companies to understand their practices, understand their challenges. We like to think that we can also help companies with their transition plans by maybe giving information on other practices that we see going on in the marketplace. So with information, we're better empowered to engage.
Bertrand Millot: By pushing companies to do the right thing is how things are going to change. We can't do it ourselves. We invest in companies. And so it is a very, very important aspect.
There's different ways to do it, depending on which kind of company you invest in. You should-- you have the obligation to actually vote on the annual general meeting. And for example, if you take climate as an example, we have a well-articulated strategy to engage the company to discuss with them what they're up to, and then if we're not happy, to potentially raise that to a more senior level, chair of the board.
If we continue not to be happy, we can actually submit a shareholder proposal in a formal process, which will then be subject to a vote. And then, in the end, there is always the option of voting against the board directors who are in charge of sustainability, for example.
Ayla Bajwa: Today, a lot of our investment that we're talking about and that will feed into these impact metrics is because we have a multi-stakeholder engagement approach. But I will tell you, if we had a tunnel-vision investor approach, we would not be incentivized today to be investing in education, or water, or any of this. So help us out. We really want to. But if you don't hold us to task, then it's going to be difficult for us to get it over the line internally.
Erin Leonard: Very important, but I think we also have to recognize that, in the emerging markets, adding extra layers of cost associated with verification schemes is a big ask. And the way that we, as asset managers, look at it-- of course, if we've got a third-party verification, that makes our lives easier, cleaner. We can probably do a little bit less homework ourselves.
But we do also value self-certification with companies that have the good governance, that have proper risk management frameworks and assurance frameworks, et cetera. And I believe I'm right about this-- that even MSCI, in terms of the data that they bring in, they actually will reference where data coming in is third-party-verified or self-assured.
Those factor into our scoring models. So again, higher score if you have third-party verification, but your company will be considered if it is self-assured.
[End of video]
Creating development finance as an asset class
How can sustainable finance make a global impact?
JPM DFI: Catalyzing sustainable developments
Mobilizing private capital toward sustainable development
Podcast: Mobilizing development finance in Asia Pacific
Impact Disclosure Taskforce: Advancing the UN SDGs
Learn about the deals the DFI team has led and the impact they are having in advancing and supporting emerging markets.
In 2023, J.P. Morgan acted as joint bookrunner and development finance structuring agent (DFSA) for the Republic of Costa Rica on two transactions. The country returned to the international bond markets in March 2023 for the first time since 2019, successfully issuing $1.5 billion — the largest-ever single-tranche bond issuance by the Republic. It then launched another successful $1.5 billion issuance in November 2023. By strengthening the budgetary support of the government, the two issuances are expected to support the outcomes designed by the country’s development plans.
In September 2023, J.P. Morgan acted as lead coordinator and DFSA for a senior secured debentures offering in the Brazilian local debt capital markets. Mottu is a motorcycle leasing company and last-mile delivery marketplace headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil. It aims to produce up to 20,000 additional motorcycles for lease, which is expected to create up to 19,560 courier jobs and up to 6,100 roles within the company. This is expected to enable the completion of up to 600,000 additional deliveries, bolstering the local Brazilian economy across various sectors.
In June 2023, Peru’s state-owned housing facilitator, Fondo Mivivienda (FMV), signed an agreement for a line of credit from J.P. Morgan — guaranteed by the World Bank Group’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) — specifically for social and green mortgages. This is aimed at expanding access to affordable housing for low- and middle-income Peruvian families. FMV’s investment is expected to ripple through Peru’s real estate and construction sectors, creating jobs and strengthening the local housing infrastructure.
In November 2023, J.P. Morgan acted as joint bookrunner, sustainable bond structuring agent and DFSA for Grupo Energía Bogotá S.A. E.S.P. (GEB)’s $400 million sustainable bond, which will fund green and social projects in Colombia, Brazil, Guatemala and Peru. By 2030, GEB will expand clean energy transmission lines by 5,645 km and bring natural gas connections to 800,000 Peruvian homes.
In June 2023, Brazilian soy processor CJ Selecta entered into a six-month, $10 million export pre-Payment facility with J.P. Morgan to support its export operations and manage its cash flows more efficiently. The company is committed to sustainability by using recycled materials and aiming for 100% deforestation-free soy sourcing by 2025. It is also doubling ethanol production from soy molasses to create biofuel, reducing emissions and pursuing carbon neutrality across its operations.
Turkey's Ministry of Treasury and Finance recently partnered with Rönesans Holding and J.P. Morgan to address transportation inefficiencies — including congested roads and a slow, diesel-powered railway — in Mersin, Turkey's second-largest container port. Together, they aim to transform the 286km railway into a high-speed electric line, highlighting the role that sustainability-minded financing can play in advancing economic development.
Learn about the deals the DFI team has led and the impact they are having in advancing and supporting emerging markets.
In 2023, J.P. Morgan acted as joint bookrunner and development finance structuring agent (DFSA) for the Republic of Costa Rica on two transactions. The country returned to the international bond markets in March 2023 for the first time since 2019, successfully issuing $1.5 billion — the largest-ever single-tranche bond issuance by the Republic. It then launched another successful $1.5 billion issuance in November 2023. By strengthening the budgetary support of the government, the two issuances are expected to support the outcomes designed by the country’s development plans.
In September 2023, J.P. Morgan acted as lead coordinator and DFSA for a senior secured debentures offering in the Brazilian local debt capital markets. Mottu is a motorcycle leasing company and last-mile delivery marketplace headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil. It aims to produce up to 20,000 additional motorcycles for lease, which is expected to create up to 19,560 courier jobs and up to 6,100 roles within the company. This is expected to enable the completion of up to 600,000 additional deliveries, bolstering the local Brazilian economy across various sectors.
In June 2023, Peru’s state-owned housing facilitator, Fondo Mivivienda (FMV), signed an agreement for a line of credit from J.P. Morgan — guaranteed by the World Bank Group’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) — specifically for social and green mortgages. This is aimed at expanding access to affordable housing for low- and middle-income Peruvian families. FMV’s investment is expected to ripple through Peru’s real estate and construction sectors, creating jobs and strengthening the local housing infrastructure.
In November 2023, J.P. Morgan acted as joint bookrunner, sustainable bond structuring agent and DFSA for Grupo Energía Bogotá S.A. E.S.P. (GEB)’s $400 million sustainable bond, which will fund green and social projects in Colombia, Brazil, Guatemala and Peru. By 2030, GEB will expand clean energy transmission lines by 5,645 km and bring natural gas connections to 800,000 Peruvian homes.
In June 2023, Brazilian soy processor CJ Selecta entered into a six-month, $10 million export pre-Payment facility with J.P. Morgan to support its export operations and manage its cash flows more efficiently. The company is committed to sustainability by using recycled materials and aiming for 100% deforestation-free soy sourcing by 2025. It is also doubling ethanol production from soy molasses to create biofuel, reducing emissions and pursuing carbon neutrality across its operations.
Turkey's Ministry of Treasury and Finance recently partnered with Rönesans Holding and J.P. Morgan to address transportation inefficiencies — including congested roads and a slow, diesel-powered railway — in Mersin, Turkey's second-largest container port. Together, they aim to transform the 286km railway into a high-speed electric line, highlighting the role that sustainability-minded financing can play in advancing economic development.
Arsalan Mahtafar leads the JPM DFI in its mission to channel private capital towards investments with development impact.
As a founding member of the JPM DFI, Arsalan worked with leading development banks to create the JPM DFI methodology, and frequently collaborates with global institutions to establish standards for impact measurement and management in capital markets.
Prior to J.P. Morgan, Arsalan was a manager within McKinsey’s Economic Development Practice, where he advised governments on national development plans and industrial policy. Arsalan holds a Master in Public Administration in International Development from Harvard University and dual Bachelors in Business Administration and International Political Economy from UC Berkeley.
Allie Barry is a Vice President on the JPM DFI who leads deal origination, business development, and investor syndication. Allie focuses on investor engagement with the goal of channeling private capital towards sustainable development transactions globally in conjunction with J.P. Morgan’s product teams.
Allie is a founding member of the JPM DFI team, which she joined from the firm’s Management Associate Program, a leadership development program. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Allie worked as an associate at Glade Brook Capital. Allie holds a Masters in Business Administration from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Science in International Politics from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
Monia Bianco is a Vice President within JPM DFI, where she focuses on deal origination and advising clients on impact disclosure. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Monia was an ESG research analyst under the portfolio management team at PIMCO, responsible for ESG integration and engagement with a focus on sovereigns and emerging markets. Before that, she held positions as a sales executive at the London Stock Exchange and in portfolio analytics at Bloomberg. Monia has 8 years of investment experience and holds a bachelor’s degree in international economics and finance from Bocconi University and is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Sustainability Management at Columbia University.
Mia Lu is an Associate in the JPM DFI. Mia focuses on applying the DFI methodology to Banking and Markets transactions across the CIB to assess their development impact in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Qualified transactions contribute to the firm’s 2030 $2.5tn Sustainable Development Target. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Mia worked at International Finance Corporation(IFC) of the World Bank Group, where she assisted IFC’s partnership with asset managers in green bond fund advisory service and management. Before IFC, Mia was a Global Markets Associate at Eurasia Group. Mia holds dual Masters in Public Policy and Economics from Georgetown University and a Bachelor in International Affairs and Economics from George Washington University.
Stephanie de Lesseps is an Associate on the JPM DFI team and supports the JPM DFI functions in her role. Stephanie works with corporate and sovereign clients to create impact frameworks under the Impact Disclosure Guidance, and works on investor marketing to institutional investors with impact criteria.
Stephanie graduated Cum Laude and Dean’s List from Georgetown University’s College of Arts and Sciences in May 2020 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and French, with a completion of the French Honors Thesis with a Distinction mention. She studied at Sciences Po, Université de Strasbourg as a direct matriculation student as part of her college curriculum. She holds FINRA licenses SIE, Series 7, Series 79, and Series 63.Daniel joined the JPM DFI as an analyst and provides support to the JPM DFI functions in his role. He was a graduate consultant for the World Bank, analyzing pension funds’ progress toward sustainability. He also worked for a consulting firm, The Bassiouni Group, where he analyzed economic trends, ESG and public policy in Latin America. Before that, he worked for five years as a lawyer specializing in corporate law, capital markets, venture capital and debt restructuring in Brazil.
Daniel graduated from Columbia University with a master’s degree in international affairs and a concentration in international finance and economic policy and holds a bachelor’s degree in law from the University of São Paulo. As part of his university studies, he studied at Paris I, Pantheón-Sorbonne University as a direct matriculation student and holds FINRA licenses SIE, Series 79, and Series 63.
Daniel Zelikow is Vice Chair, Public Sector, at J.P. Morgan, Global Co-Head of Infrastructure Finance and Advisory, and Chair of the Governing Board of the JPM DFI. He leads a team that manages the bank’s business with public sector clients. In 2020, he launched the JPM DFI to scale up the firm’s financing of development challenges in emerging markets.
Immediately prior to re-joining J.P. Morgan in 2010, Daniel was the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C. While with the IADB, he was instrumental in defining a new corporate strategy, doubling the volume of client operations, devising and executing the IADB’s response to the global financial crisis, and bringing about significant management and financial reforms. He also chaired the management committees on policy, operations, and risk, and he chaired the Board of Executive Directors in the President’s absence.
Daniel was previously with J.P. Morgan and headed the firm’s emerging markets sovereign debt origination and its liability management group. He also managed a New York-based investment banking practice focused on government financial institutions, multilateral development banks, export credit agencies and sovereigns.
Prior to joining J.P. Morgan in 1999, he held key positions in the U.S. Treasury, where he was Deputy Assistant Secretary responsible for financial policy towards countries in the Americas, Asia and Africa. At Treasury, he was the founding director of the Office of Technical Assistance and also served for two years as the Senior Economic and Financial Advisor to the President and Minister of Finance of Albania in Tirana.
He holds a BA from Dartmouth College, graduating summa cum laude, and a D.Phil from Oxford University. He serves on several for profit and non-profit boards.
Arsalan Mahtafar leads the JPM DFI in its mission to channel private capital towards investments with development impact.
As a founding member of the JPM DFI, Arsalan worked with leading development banks to create the JPM DFI methodology, and frequently collaborates with global institutions to establish standards for impact measurement and management in capital markets.
Prior to J.P. Morgan, Arsalan was a manager within McKinsey’s Economic Development Practice, where he advised governments on national development plans and industrial policy. Arsalan holds a Master in Public Administration in International Development from Harvard University and dual Bachelors in Business Administration and International Political Economy from UC Berkeley.
Allie Barry is a Vice President on the JPM DFI who leads deal origination, business development, and investor syndication. Allie focuses on investor engagement with the goal of channeling private capital towards sustainable development transactions globally in conjunction with J.P. Morgan’s product teams.
Allie is a founding member of the JPM DFI team, which she joined from the firm’s Management Associate Program, a leadership development program. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Allie worked as an associate at Glade Brook Capital. Allie holds a Masters in Business Administration from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Science in International Politics from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
Monia Bianco is a Vice President within JPM DFI, where she focuses on deal origination and advising clients on impact disclosure. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Monia was an ESG research analyst under the portfolio management team at PIMCO, responsible for ESG integration and engagement with a focus on sovereigns and emerging markets. Before that, she held positions as a sales executive at the London Stock Exchange and in portfolio analytics at Bloomberg. Monia has 8 years of investment experience and holds a bachelor’s degree in international economics and finance from Bocconi University and is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Sustainability Management at Columbia University.
Mia Lu is an Associate in the JPM DFI. Mia focuses on applying the DFI methodology to Banking and Markets transactions across the CIB to assess their development impact in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Qualified transactions contribute to the firm’s 2030 $2.5tn Sustainable Development Target. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Mia worked at International Finance Corporation(IFC) of the World Bank Group, where she assisted IFC’s partnership with asset managers in green bond fund advisory service and management. Before IFC, Mia was a Global Markets Associate at Eurasia Group. Mia holds dual Masters in Public Policy and Economics from Georgetown University and a Bachelor in International Affairs and Economics from George Washington University.
Stephanie de Lesseps is an Associate on the JPM DFI team and supports the JPM DFI functions in her role. Stephanie works with corporate and sovereign clients to create impact frameworks under the Impact Disclosure Guidance, and works on investor marketing to institutional investors with impact criteria.
Stephanie graduated Cum Laude and Dean’s List from Georgetown University’s College of Arts and Sciences in May 2020 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and French, with a completion of the French Honors Thesis with a Distinction mention. She studied at Sciences Po, Université de Strasbourg as a direct matriculation student as part of her college curriculum. She holds FINRA licenses SIE, Series 7, Series 79, and Series 63.
Daniel joined the JPM DFI as an analyst and provides support to the JPM DFI functions in his role. He was a graduate consultant for the World Bank, analyzing pension funds’ progress toward sustainability. He also worked for a consulting firm, The Bassiouni Group, where he analyzed economic trends, ESG and public policy in Latin America. Before that, he worked for five years as a lawyer specializing in corporate law, capital markets, venture capital and debt restructuring in Brazil.
Daniel graduated from Columbia University with a master’s degree in international affairs and a concentration in international finance and economic policy and holds a bachelor’s degree in law from the University of São Paulo. As part of his university studies, he studied at Paris I, Pantheón-Sorbonne University as a direct matriculation student and holds FINRA licenses SIE, Series 79, and Series 63.
Daniel Zelikow is Vice Chair, Public Sector, at J.P. Morgan, Global Co-Head of Infrastructure Finance and Advisory, and Chair of the Governing Board of the JPM DFI. He leads a team that manages the bank’s business with public sector clients. In 2020, he launched the JPM DFI to scale up the firm’s financing of development challenges in emerging markets.
Immediately prior to re-joining J.P. Morgan in 2010, Daniel was the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C. While with the IADB, he was instrumental in defining a new corporate strategy, doubling the volume of client operations, devising and executing the IADB’s response to the global financial crisis, and bringing about significant management and financial reforms. He also chaired the management committees on policy, operations, and risk, and he chaired the Board of Executive Directors in the President’s absence.
Daniel was previously with J.P. Morgan and headed the firm’s emerging markets sovereign debt origination and its liability management group. He also managed a New York-based investment banking practice focused on government financial institutions, multilateral development banks, export credit agencies and sovereigns.
Prior to joining J.P. Morgan in 1999, he held key positions in the U.S. Treasury, where he was Deputy Assistant Secretary responsible for financial policy towards countries in the Americas, Asia and Africa. At Treasury, he was the founding director of the Office of Technical Assistance and also served for two years as the Senior Economic and Financial Advisor to the President and Minister of Finance of Albania in Tirana.
He holds a BA from Dartmouth College, graduating summa cum laude, and a D.Phil from Oxford University. He serves on several for profit and non-profit boards.
The JPM DFI augments JPM’s existing emerging markets client offering by addressing the growing demand from institutional investors for transactions with credible impact disclosure and reporting. By applying the JPM DFI impact methodology, we help our emerging markets clients assess the anticipated development impact of their transaction and communicate that impact in a standard format to the investor community. Through increased investor engagement, we hope to create a “virtuous cycle”, whereby more emerging markets issuers recognise the benefit of setting clear sustainable development targets which can be measured and tracked. This improved disclosure from emerging markets clients should further support investor confidence and capital flows into sustainable development assets in emerging markets.
The JPM DFI does not have its own balance sheet capacity. The JPM DFI provides its services in conjunction with J.P. Morgan’s Commercial & Investment Banking (CIB) products. The CIB, among other things, originates and structures financial instruments for distribution/syndication to the ultimate institutional investors to such assets. The JPM DFI helps emerging markets corporates and sovereigns assess the anticipated development impact of their financing needs and identify institutional investors seeking to provide capital or risk mitigation products to projects and transactions with sustainable development impact. In doing so, the JPM DFI seeks to scale up the CIB’s origination of such transactions and accelerate the mobilization of capital to these investment opportunities.
In recent years, we have seen a growing interest in ESG and impact investing from all market participants. As the ESG wave grows, we have observed meaningful changes in behavior and increased interest in ESG products from investors (ESG-aligned funds), corporates (focus on ESG frameworks and targets) and commercial banks (public commitments). J.P. Morgan has also advanced its ESG strategy by forming new teams focused on climate change and sustainable development, and by announcing a $2.5 trillion target by 2030 to finance and facilitate transactions that address climate change and contribute to sustainable development. In 2021, transactions assessed by the JPM DFI accounted for the largest contribution to this target.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015. The SDGs are 17 interconnected global goals and 169 unique targets aimed at ending poverty, improving health and education, reducing inequality, and spurring economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our natural ecosystems. While some of the goals (e.g., SDG 7 Affordable and Clean Energy and SDG 13 Climate Action) are directly aimed at mitigating the adverse impacts of climate change, a focus on economic, social, and environmental sustainability is a common feature underlying all of the SDGs.
Impact disclosure guidance
A network of financial institutions, capital markets participants and industry stakeholders convened to draft voluntary guidance for entity-level impact disclosure.
Improving connectivity across Africa
J.P. Morgan led Axian Telecom's (African telecom provider) $420M bond issuance in February 2022, acting as coordinators and structuring agent.
A debut transaction in Georgia
J.P. Morgan acts as development finance structuring agent and leads the first green bond offering for a longstanding client in the country of Georgia.
ESG at J.P. Morgan
Driving long-term sustainability for our clients, employees and the communities we serve.
This material (including market commentary, market data, observations or the like) has been prepared by personnel in the Development Finance Institution at JPMorgan Chase & Co. It is not the product of any Research Department at J.P. Morgan (“JPM Research”) and has not been reviewed, endorsed or otherwise approved by J.P. Morgan Research. Any views or opinions expressed herein are solely those of the individual authors and may differ from the views and opinions expressed by other departments or divisions of J.P. Morgan. This material is for the general information of our clients only and it is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument or as an official confirmation of any transaction or a recommendation for any investment product or strategy. All transactions (including potential transactions) presented herein are for illustration purposes only.
Information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable but J.P. Morgan does not warrant its completeness or accuracy. In no event shall J.P. Morgan be liable for any use by any party of, for any decision made or action taken by any party in reliance upon, or for any inaccuracies or errors in, or omissions from, the information contained herein and such information may not be relied upon by you in evaluating the merits of participating in any transaction. J.P. Morgan is not obligated to update any information contained herein or to inform you if any of this information should change in the future. The information contained herein does not constitute a commitment or undertaking by any J.P. Morgan entity to underwrite, subscribe for or place any securities or to extend or arrange credit or to provide any other services to any person or entity. All products and services are subject to applicable laws, regulations, and applicable approvals and notifications. J.P. Morgan is the marketing name for the investment banking activities of JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., J.P. Morgan Securities LLC (member, NYSE), J.P. Morgan Securities plc (authorised by the PRA and regulated by the FCA and the PRA) and their investment banking affiliates.
RESTRICTED DISTRIBUTION: This material and statements made herein are proprietary and confidential to J.P. Morgan and are for your personal use only and are not intended to be legally binding. Any distribution, copy, reprints and/or forward to others is strictly prohibited.
© JPMorgan Chase & Co.
You're now leaving J.P. Morgan
J.P. Morgan’s website and/or mobile terms, privacy and security policies don’t apply to the site or app you're about to visit. Please review its terms, privacy and security policies to see how they apply to you. J.P. Morgan isn’t responsible for (and doesn’t provide) any products, services or content at this third-party site or app, except for products and services that explicitly carry the J.P. Morgan name.