Leveraging AI and digital tools for SME sustainable finance

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) remain underrepresented in sustainable finance markets. The principal obstacles are informational: sustainability data are costly to generate, difficult to verify and fragmented across incompatible reporting frameworks, while administrative burden of originating and monitoring small-ticket sustainable loan constrains supply-side participation. This note examines how artificial intelligence (AI) and digital tools can help address these bottlenecks across the financing lifecycle, from sustainability data generation and reporting on the SME side, to origination, credit assessment and portfolio monitoring within financial institutions. Drawing on country examples and recent initiatives, it maps practical applications across the front, middle and back office of financial institutions and identifies the governance conditions under which these tools can be deployed responsibly. Four policy priorities are proposed: building interoperable data infrastructure, strengthening verification mechanisms, creating meaningful incentives for SME reporting and ensuring accountable use of AI in financing decisions.