7. Other British financial institutions financing nuclear weapons

Several other British financial institutions which operate in Scotland appear in the 2018 DBOTB’s report’s Hall of Shame. A UK-specific version of the report shows that 26 British financial institutions together made an estimated £24.5 billion available to nuclear weapons companies between January 2014 and October 2017.

Barclays, Britain’s second largest bank, has a policy which prohibits transactions related to the “trade in, or manufacture of nuclear weapons”. However, the policy is not comprehensive and Barclays made more than £5.6 billion available to nuclear weapons producers between 2014 and 2017, making it by far the largest British investor.

Britain’s largest Bank, HSBC, made more than £2.3 billion available to nuclear weapons producers during the period. HSBSC has a policy covering the defence sector which states that the bank will not provide financing to companies which manufacture or sell anti-personnel mines or cluster bombs and states that the bank “does not provide financial services to customers who solely or primarily manufacture or sell other weapons”. This means that the bank can still finance companies which are heavily involved in weapons work, but which also undertake other activities, and the policy does not specifically restrict the financing of nuclear weapons producers.

For more information on how you can encourage British financial institutions to divest, see section 8.