Saffron Building Society has announced the launch of two new products in a first step towards offering green financing solutions to its customers.

For those looking to save for the future and give back to the environment, Saffron has released the ‘Enviro Saver', a savings account that can be opened online with a minimum deposit of £10 and a maximum balance of £500,000. The interest on the account is 0.35% annually with an additional 0.10% donated to an environmental charity.

Alongside the Enviro Saver, Saffron is also offering a green ‘Retro-Fit Mortgage’, to encourage borrowers to upgrade current housing stock to a better energy efficiency rating (EPC). If updating a home, the society said that the mortgage offers an interest reduction reward for the remaining time of the two-year fixed rate, when the borrower can prove that any upgrades made to the property have improved the EPC by one band, to a minimum of E.

Saffron’s move comes after months of analysing the Government’s Green Finance strategy that launched in July 2019, part of which was to encourage financial institutions to consider data and analytics relating to climate change and create ‘green financial products’.

Saffron product development manager and developer of the green products, Laura Bright, commented: “I was made aware of the government’s green financing scheme last year. Having studied the guidelines I was keen to create green products from Saffron that can help to further enhance the government’s strategy, whilst also taking the first step to a greener future for Saffron Building Society and our loyal customers.

“Each product offers a little incentive to encourage borrowers to think of the environment, whilst giving a little something to the charities working so hard to save our planet.”

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