Malaysia’s major banks are bucking a global trend towards the decarbonisation of the finance industry by continuing to finance new coal-fired power projects in Southeast Asia, a new report has found. Maybank, Malaysia’s largest bank by assets and Southeast Asia’s fourth largest, CIMB and RHB Bank, Southeast Asia’s fifth and thirteenth biggest banks, respectively, have provided US$4.9 billion to coal projects in the region through loans and bonds over the last decade, data from finance-focused non-government organisation (NGO) Market Forces has shown. Malaysia’s banks also show no sign of backing away from coal—as 45 major international banks have done, according to data from BankTrack, a civic society group that tracks finance groups’ climate policies. Both CIMB and Maybank have expressed interest in joining the funding collective for the Jawa 9 and 10 project in Indonesia, a US$3.5 billion, 2,000 megawatt facility that has the potential to cause 4,700 premature deaths from air pollution over its lifetime, the report claims.

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