This has facilitated the growth of entrepreneurs by providing finance to about 1.3 million crowdfunding projects. Crowdfunding platforms also allow entrepreneurs to closely engage with their customers – themselves investors – to shape and refine product ideas. A good example is the role played by crowdfunding in the rise of virtual reality (VR), which was largely ignored by traditional funders after its disappointing performance in the 1990s. Oculus Rift or the VR technology as we know would never have happened without crowdfunding. Such success stories can be an inspiration for our SMEs. With SMEs in Malaysia facing difficulty in obtaining capital and mezzanine financing, crowdfunding and P2P platforms can be further explored to meet such funding needs. Third, the matching of funds enabled by fintech also has great application within the social financing space. In particular, we see the potential of digitising the collection and utilisation of zakat, waqaf and sadaqah as holding great promise. The efficiency and transparency enabled by technology not only provides greater convenience to customers, but more importantly, builds public trust and confidence in the system. In turn, this will see wider participation and greater contributions towards social impact initiatives such as those to improve education, widen access to healthcare and extend humanitarian relief. We are already seeing encouraging developments in this space. For example, SkolaFund raised over RM200,000 in 2016 to fund 25 students from less-privileged families studying in universities and colleges in Malaysia.
At best, risk managers end up being tolerated as a necessary evil and constraint to innovation, rather than valuable partners to significantly lift a firm’s growth potential. Today, risk managers are tasked to identify and mitigate risks in day-to-day business decisions. This inherently assumes that risk managers in the office are going to be always better at identifying risks in new business ventures than the individuals on the ground who are charged to lead and execute them. In a fast changing world, this is particularly problematic because it is more likely to place unrealistic expectations on risk managers. Of greater concern, it may not permit timely responses to emerging risks. It also slows the pace at which a firm can learn from and adapt their risk tolerance to new ways of doing business as it gains experience. The path forward therefore lies in making business leaders better risk managers. The role of risk 2/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  managers in turn should evolve from directly supporting individual business decisions, to continuously pushing for more clearly defined risk appetite frameworks through engagements with the board, senior management and business leaders; by ensuring that management guidance is consistent with the risk appetite; and communicating the risk appetite in precise and specific terms across the organisation. Organisations will rarely get it right the first time.