Asset managers have a responsibility as stewards of capital, to engage companies in your portfolios to ensure appropriate climate risk management and objective reporting. MAS will support the review of the Singapore Stewardship Principles, to provide specific guidance on stewardship with respect to environmental considerations. The review will be undertaken by an industry group led by Stewardship Asia Centre. Fourth, work with other central banks and regulators to shape internationally consistent ESG reporting and disclosure. MAS is leading the work at the Network for Greening the Financial System to set out supervisory expectations on climate-related disclosures by financial institutions. We are participating in efforts by the International Platform on Sustainable Finance to develop a “common ground taxonomy” to highlight commonalities across existing green taxonomies and contribute to greater comparability in data definitions. MAS is on the IOSCO Sustainable Finance Task Force, which is working on improving securities issuers’ sustainability-related disclosures. MAS is also working with our ASEAN peers to harmonise taxonomies and standards. There has been good progress in this space, with the development of the ASEAN Green, Social and Sustainability Bond Standards. BUILD KNOWLEDGE AND CAPABILITIES IN SUSTAINABLE FINANCE Our third area of focus is to build knowledge and capabilities in sustainable finance. Portfolio managers and analysts need to be upskilled with the knowledge and capabilities to execute and evaluate sustainability investment strategies. They must develop a keen understanding of climate risk and its various possible effects. They must be able to design innovative ESG scoring methodologies, investment strategies, and product offerings.
Zamani Abdul Ghani: Scaling up financial inclusion through branchless banking Remarks by Mr Zamani Abdul Ghani, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia, at the Microfinance Policymakers Forum “Scaling up Financial Inclusion through Branchless Banking”, Kuala Lumpur, 2 December 2009. *  *  *  Introduction Good afternoon and welcome to Malaysia. It is very encouraging to see so many senior policymakers gathered here today to participate in this Microfinance Policymakers Forum. Thank you for taking the time to be here and for contributing your knowledge. The motivation for today's event has its roots in the forum of the United Nations Advisory Group for Inclusive Financial Sectors which was held in May this year in Kuala Lumpur. As many of you may be aware, in recognition of the importance of financial inclusion, the United Nations established the United Nations Advisory Group on Financial Inclusion in 2006. The group advises the United Nations and member states on issues relating to the advancement of the financial inclusion agenda on a global scale. Since its establishment, many successes have been achieved. These include increasing the public awareness on the importance of financial inclusion, assisting governments in the design of regulatory systems that facilitate the creation of financial services for the poor, encouraging the use of holistic measures to gauge the progress of financial inclusion as well as collecting and disseminating best practices to further advance financial inclusion. One of the topics that received considerable attention at the UNAG forum was branchless banking.