PETALING JAYA: Regulators and market participants in the financial markets in Malaysia are considering innovative frameworks and solutions to address the funding gap to transition to a more resilient and inclusive economy.

       Securities Commission market development executive director Salmah Bee Mohd Mydin said as financial markets are the key to a sustainable future, it could determine the direction of economic development and significantly influence the adoption of green activities into the mainstream.

       She said this in a virtual session titled “Sustainable Capital Market Product Innovation Roundtable” at the Sustainable Finance Week Virtual Conference at Expo 2020 Dubai yesterday.

       Salmah said one of the key strategies for a sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) is to leverage the synergies between the Islamic capital market and SRI. One example, she said, was the development of the SRI support framework. ― Bernama

       Meanwhile, in a separate session titled, ‘The Transition Revolution’, CIMB Islamic Bank Bhd chief executive officer Ahmad Shahriman Mohd Shariff said in pushing the sustainability agenda, the banking sector needed to accelerate capacity building in order to produce a meaningful, sizeable amount to be placed in the market.

       “For example, some of the technology or free to use technology that can be used to do measurement (of sustainability efforts) and so on or applications, can it also be used by retail, small and medium enterprises and what not?

       “For banks, we can also use these tools to measure because now the question is how do we measure and create or collect all the information required to see whether what we are doing has an impact or not,” he said.

       Ahmad Shahriman also said that best practices among the banking institutions and even companies should be shared through a platform to achieve a common goal on sustainability, besides providing incentives as it would help to address some of the cost issues for all market segments. -- BERNAMA