Triodos Bank N.V. is an ethical bank based in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

with branches in

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, and

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. It was founded in 1980.

History

The name Triodos is derived from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

"τρὶ- (tri, three) and ὁδος (hodos, road) meaning "meeting of three roads", which for the bank are: people, planet, and profit. The bank was initially founded as an anthroposophical initiative with a mission to promote quality of life in the broad sense. In 1980 Triodos launched the first "green fund," a fund for environmentally friendly projects, on the

Amsterdam Stock Exchange Euronext Amsterdam is a stock exchange based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Formerly known as the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (), it merged on 22 September 2000 with the Brussels Stock Exchange and the Paris Stock Exchange to form Euronext. The ...

. Triodos took over the British ethical bank Mercury Provident in 1994. The bank operations and customer support are mainly offered digitally, but offers some physical banks. In

, for example, several physical offices have been opened in major towns. Triodos Bank received the Sustainable Bank of the Year 2009 award from the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

'' and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an organization of the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

. As of 2025, Triodos Bank managed around 750,000 customer accounts in Europe.

Philosophy

The Triodos Bank prioritizes investing into environmentally friendly initiatives, and refers to its work as the anthroposophical principle of social three folding. The bank transfers its customers' deposits exclusively to the real economy, thereby financing companies, organizations, and projects which it believes contribute to ecological, social or cultural change. In accordance with this philosophy, Triodos Bank in Germany purchases electricity from the green energy provider Naturstrom AG.

Policy

Account holders can open conventional

savings account A savings account is a bank account at a retail banking, retail bank. Common features include a limited number of withdrawals, a lack of cheque and linked debit card facilities, limited transfer options and the inability to be overdrawn. Traditi ...

s, as well as ethical funds and venture capital. Triodos also offer conventional personal current accounts and business banking services. Triodos has an active international department, supporting

microfinance Microfinance consists of financial services targeting individuals and small businesses (SMEs) who lack access to conventional banking and related services. Microfinance includes microcredit, the provision of small loans to poor clients; saving ...

initiatives across the

developing world A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreeme ...

. Triodos is the only commercial

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

in the UK to provide an annual list of all the

loans In finance, a loan is the tender of money by one party to another with an agreement to pay it back. The recipient, or borrower, incurs a debt and is usually required to pay interest for the use of the money. The document evidencing the debt ( ...

the bank has made.

Criteria for lending

Triodos only lends to businesses and charities that it judges to be of social or ecological benefit. This "positive screening" extends its policies beyond those of ethical banks which solely avoid investing in companies judged to be doing harm ("negative screening"). The bank uses money deposited by close to 100,000 savers and lends it to hundreds of organizations, such as fair trade initiatives, organic farms, cultural and arts initiatives,

renewable energy Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind pow ...

projects, and

social enterprise A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being. This may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for co-owners. Social enterprises ha ...

s. " riodosdoes not lend to organizations, businesses, and projects that are directly involved for more than 5% of its activities in non-sustainable products and services or non-sustainable working processes. Triodos Bank will however, to the best of its knowledge, exclude all organizations, businesses, and activities that produce or distribute

nuclear energy Nuclear energy may refer to: *Nuclear power, the use of sustained nuclear fission or nuclear fusion to generate heat and electricity *Nuclear binding energy, the energy needed to fuse or split a nucleus of an atom *Nuclear potential energy, the pot ...

, weapons, fur, pornography and environmentally hazardous substances".

Shareholders

Triodos is owned through

depositary receipt A depositary receipt (DR) is a negotiable financial instrument issued by a bank to represent a foreign company's Public company, publicly traded Security (finance), securities. The depositary receipt trades on a local stock exchange. Depositary rec ...

s by private investors and a few institutional investors. At the end of 2021 the bank had 43,521 depository receipt holders. Triodos Bank's shares are owned by the Stichting Administratiekantoor Aandelen Triodos Bank which issues depositary receipts to individuals and institutions, which entitle them to payment of a dividend, but which have limited voting rights. These Depositary receipts are not traded on any stock exchange. Holders are not allowed to own more than 10% of the shares, and the maximum number of votes per holder in the general meeting of depositary receipt holders is limited to 1,000. This construction was chosen to prevent hostile takeovers. Triodos has managed trading in certificates itself since its inception, the price being determined by the bank's net asset value, and updated periodically. Mainly as a result of the COVID-19 epidemic, an imbalance arose between buyers and sellers of certificates, whereby there were more sellers than buyers. The bank therefore temporarily suspended trading on 18 March 2020. Trading resumed on 13 October 2020, with a cap of €5,000 for sales, which was later reduced to just €1,000. Trading was halted again on 5 January 2021. This led to a reaction from certificate holders. They joined forces in November 2021 in the 'Triodom' platform, from which the Triodos Bank Depositary Receipt Holders Foundation was established in March 2022, representing concerned customers with a combined depository capacity of €120 million. On 10 October 2022 the foundation filed a petition with the Enterprise Chamber of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal asking it to investigate, which the bank regrets. On 21 December 2021, Triodos decided to start trading the certificates on a

multilateral trading facility A multilateral trading facility (MTF) is a European Union regulatory term for a self-regulated financial trading venue. These are alternatives to the traditional stock exchanges where a market is made in securities, typically using electronic ...

(MTF), a trading platform that is only accessible to registered participants and can therefore protect the autonomy and mission of the bank. The price of the certificates will then be determined by supply and demand. With a view to tax reporting obligations, the bank applied an administrative discount of 30% to the value of the certificates from 31 December 2021. The last traded price of certificates was €84 on 5 January 2021, but for tax purposes they were valued at only €60. Because trading was not expected to restart until the 2nd quarter of 2023, a restrictive certificate buyback programme was planned in 2021 for certificate holders with an urgent need to sell their shares. However, in August 2022, the bank announced that this plan would be withdrawn and instead paid an extraordinary dividend of €1.01 per depository receipt (before withholding tax). On 11 October 2022 the bank’s shareholder, SAAT, approved the move to the MTF. Captin BV was chosen to manage the MTF. Trading reopened on 5 July 2023, but has been sparse. As of late-April 2025, the price on the Captin trading platform was €27. Certificate holders, grouped into the Stichting Certificaathouders Triodos Bank and other groups in Spain and Germany, have voted at SAAT meetings for measures to increase returns to investors. A quotation on Euronext is planned.

References

External links

*
Integrated Annual Report

Fair Finance Guide Netherlands
(screening of Triodosbank) *
The Colour of Money
', a print and online magazine produced by the bank {{Authority control Banks of the Netherlands Ethical banking Anthroposophy Social enterprises Companies based in Utrecht (province) Zeist