LONDON, England—When a country greenlights nuclear power projects, it exposes stakeholders to significant risks. Who reaps the revenue? Who will bear the burden of a fallout? And who gets stuck with the bill?

At the recent World Nuclear Symposium in London, one question came up again and again: when a nuclear project moves forward, who will be the first to step up? The blunt consensus was clear: it won’t be the banks or lenders.

In the nuclear power development game, reactor vendors make the first move. They push hard not just on project sponsors, but deep in the corridors of host governments, selling technology and influence.

But the biggest hurdle remains at the financing table, where lenders still balk at the massive upfront costs. No one is rushing to write a check for a project that burns through billions before it can even start generating revenue.

Banks are making it clear: no private company, no matter how deep its pockets, can single-handedly bankroll a large-scale nuclear project without risking bankruptcy. The reality is that either the government must step in with sovereign guarantees or subsidies to carry the risk, especially for new builds, or consumers end up paying the price through higher electric bills.

In fact, even sovereign guarantees can backfire when host countries are drowning in debt, making it crucial to watch how project developers navigate that financial minefield.

Across every panel and fireside chat at the symposium, industry and finance experts agreed: without clear risk allocation—whether through public-private partnerships (PPP), contracts for difference (CfD) schemes, or super long-term power supply agreements (PSAs) that pass costs on to consumers—nuclear projects will struggle to secure the financing they need.

Matt Firla-Cuchra, partner and global lead for Nuclear Energy at KPMG-UK, acknowledged that the appetite for new nuclear power developments is definitely increasing, “but the real challenge that we face is progressing with pace. My worry is that it’s taking us too long to capitalize on that momentum. And I think that the main challenge for us is to make sure we translate the public and political consensus into rapid progress across a number of projects.”

He highlighted a harsh reality: nuclear is still seen as a massive and complex black box, making financiers hesitant to inject capital without clear insight into how the entire development chain works. The real task, he said, is doing the groundwork, mapping out scenarios, and building a transparent structure that clearly shows how risks are shared.

“Risk allocation for lenders is absolutely critical. We start from the perspective of an infrastructure project and move to financing once those projects are appropriately structured,” he stressed. “The challenge there is having careful risk allocation and providing the benchmark on how different projects can be structured. We need to see reference points in structuring a project and allocating the risks in a transparent way that then allows financing and other participants to have the visibility and confidence that they know what will happen in different scenarios.”

The KPMG executive emphasized that banks will always focus on tight project structures, where risk allocation is precise and policies and regulations are aligned.

Lenders agreed that while big nuclear projects and emerging technologies like small modular reactors (SMRs) share some structural similarities, their appetite for risk and how banks will assess financing may vary significantly between the two. SMRs and other new-generation technologies are still considered "new kids on the block" that have yet to prove their commercial potential.

Seb Henbest, group head for Climate Transition at global bank HSBC, noted that “The financing for large-scale nuclear and the advanced reactors like SMRs will be different. There are just particular characteristics that need to be understood.”

He admitted that while standard risk assessments—like offtake agreements or PSAs—are always under the microscope, banks will also focus sharply on the probability of technology design flaws, construction pitfalls, and reputational fallout. These are all critical risks that can make or break a project’s commercial viability.

“The technology design risk—what is going on in the ground—the construction risk, the reputational risk—all of these are assessed in a project,” Henbest said.

Given nuclear plants’ long build times, a major question for lenders is how developers will handle delays and what regulatory guardrails governments will put in place to keep those risks in check.

“Nuclear projects tend to go longer, so how we as banks manage those risks and what the government and the project developers can do to mitigate those risks is super important,” he qualified. “As HSBC, we’re thinking about scaling finance for the industry, but how do we make the finance structure for them more scalable?”

Recent nuclear projects worldwide have shown banks and investors some uncomfortable data points: massive cost overruns are almost inevitable when construction drags on far beyond schedule.

Banks also conveyed that since SMRs are still largely in their demonstration phase, their revenue models are uncharted territory, which is why the degree of hesitation around financing remains high.

According to Victoria Kalb, managing director and global head of ESG & Sustainability Research at UBS, when tackling delays and cost overruns on nuclear projects, “it is quite difficult to find an easy option,” emphasizing that nuclear remains a tricky financing terrain for banks, even as interest grows and the technology realigns itself as a clean energy solution.

“It’s much harder to sit in front of an investment committee and make the argument for why you are investing in nuclear versus the grid, versus EVs (electric vehicles), versus renewables or versus something else,” she explained.

She indicated that while financing for renewables is also starting to face growing scrutiny, discussing nuclear cost overruns remains a very tough sell. Beyond the high capital expenditure (capex) requirement, the unpredictable and often runaway costs caused by delays make it impossible to pin down the real price tag for nuclear projects.

“It is still very difficult to get that conversation through when you’re looking at the cost overruns for nuclear,” the UBS bank executive asserted. “In fact, in some cases, you have no idea what the capex is going to be and you cannot just find your numbers on it because of the cost overruns relating to project delays.”

Correspondingly, Joanna Fic, senior vice president for Infrastructure Finance at Moody’s Investors Service, pointed out, “when we assess a project in construction, we review the same framework—whether it’s nuclear, whether it’s renewable technology—some of the basic principles that we would want to focus on are the same.”

She explained that the differing factor in their assessment hinges on complexity and clear boundaries, with a focus on sponsor experience, how easily contractors or tech providers can be replaced, and the strength of the entire supply chain.

Fic cautioned that when parts of the supply chain need replacing, lenders will thoroughly examine the cost impact and factor that into their calculations when reviewing a project’s overall resilience and liquidity.

Beyond construction, she added that lenders will also scrutinize the revenue streams during operations, especially for SMRs, where many still see the revenue model as unexplored ground.

Given all these parameters in project assessment for funding, she stated that sponsor-firms “need to think very long term. As you go into construction, you need to think about the end-game when it comes to operation—so what is going to be the revenue framework into that operational phase given the time it takes to build a nuclear plant. There’s not much attention being given to operations, especially the revenue framework for operations.”

Undoubtedly, nuclear financing remains an uphill battle. For countries like the Philippines reigniting nuclear ambitions, the unresolved questions—the offtake deals, government guarantees, investor incentives, and regulatory credibility—must be answered if they’re serious about pulling in capital for a nuclear comeback.