West Vir­ginia bans four more finan­cial insti­tu­tions over ESG poli­cies

West Vir­ginia is ban­ning four more banks from state con­tracts over their ESG poli­cies and “boy­cotts” of fos­sil fuel com­pa­nies.
Riley Moore, the West Vir­ginia state trea­sur­er, made the announce­ment on Mon­day. The firms, which include Citibank, TD Bank, North­ern Trust, and HSBC Hold­ings, had all been noti­fied in Feb­ru­ary that their state con­tracts were at risk.
The state had already placed five firms on its restrict­ed insti­tu­tions list — Black­Rock, Gold­man Sachs, J.P. Mor­gan Chase, Mor­gan Stan­ley, and Wells Far­go. The first five firms on the list have lost access to some $18 bil­lion in annu­al inflows and out­flows.
“That’s cer­tain­ly, I think, a tremen­dous loss for them,” Moore told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er dur­ing a Mon­day phone call after the lat­est four firms were added. “We real­ly kicked off this coa …