Brunei to accelerate FinTech and green finance

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN (Borneo Bulletin/Asia Information Community): Inexperienced finance and monetary expertise (FinTech) can rework the nation’s economic system and society at giant, to be extra inclusive, resilient and sustainable, mentioned Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic system Khairuddin Abdul Hamid (pic) on the Brunei Economic system Programme held at Anggerek Desa Know-how Park on Thursday (Aug 11).

“The alternatives that FinTech may supply to advance inexperienced finance is super,” mentioned the deputy minister throughout a keynote handle on the occasion.

“It may assist to handle the ache factors in growing inexperienced finance corresponding to requirement of real-time information, advanced danger evaluation and documentation in addition to trustworthiness of the ‘greenness’ of the initiatives or investments,” he mentioned.

The deputy minister mentioned the subject of sustainability, which incorporates local weather change, is of heightened significance as a world agenda.

With the demand from the worldwide and home markets for the alignment in the direction of the Sustainable Growth Objectives (SDGs), particularly within the fields of inexperienced finance initiatives, the deputy minister believes it’s time for related entities to discover how the nation may gain advantage from the trade, according to the Brunei Imaginative and prescient 2035’s third purpose – a dynamic and sustainable economic system.

He mentioned the nation’s sustainability agenda is intently aligned with the goals of Maqasid Syariah – to protect wealth, religion, lives, lineage and mind.

“Islamic finance, due to this fact, is a pure match to spearhead the sustainability agenda and has the potential to play a significant position in plugging any gaps in the direction of reaching sustainability objectives,” he added.

Khairuddin mentioned Brunei Darussalam is recognised for robust Islamic finance rules alternatives for Islamic FinTech.

One other space essential in supporting sustainability is the event of a sustainable monetary sector.

“Its growth is paramount because it offers an avenue to channel funds into ‘inexperienced’ initiatives thus ‘greening the monetary sector’,” mentioned the deputy minister.

One strategic space that the nation is engaged on is to encourage the event of financing inexperienced merchandise corresponding to electrical autos (EVs) to incentivise the acquisition, which may assist improve the entire share of EVs, whereas one other instance can be the issuance of ‘inexperienced’ bonds or sukuk to assist renewable power initiatives corresponding to solar energy stations to shift and improve using renewable power.

In the meantime, the deputy minister mentioned the lately printed Asean Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance which serves as a typical constructing block on fostering sustainable finance adoption and offers steerage to draw extra investments and monetary flows into ‘inexperienced’ initiatives within the area.

The deputy minister additionally outlined new digital monetary merchandise developed to satisfy the rising demand for handy and low-cost providers, primarily within the areas of digital cost, in addition to insurance coverage and remittance, corresponding to DSTPay, ProgresifPAY, MoneyMatch, Beep Digital Options and Takaful Brunei Cell, in addition to the institution of a Nationwide Digital Cost Hub (DPH) – a venture collectively carried out by Darussalam Property Sdn Bhd and native banks.

He additionally talked about a white paper State of FinTech in Brunei Darussalam – launched in late 2020 – which outlined suggestions to advance the event of the FinTech ecosystem within the nation.

Progress has been made to strengthen the FinTech ecosystem together with the soon-to-be established FinTech Affiliation.

In the meantime, Brunei’s entry into the World Monetary Innovation Community may additionally broaden the partnerships and prospects for native builders to ascertain reference to worldwide gamers and markets, he mentioned.

“Nonetheless, we aren’t exempted from roadblocks in our journey in the direction of efficiently carrying out our sustainability and FinTech objectives,” mentioned Khairuddin, noting the current episodes of financial and monetary crises stemming from the pandemic and world inflation which have impacted growth momentum.

“Regardless of these challenges, it has proven our capability to interrupt limits and harness our potential to innovate, thus, instructing us to leverage the present disaster as a steady studying alternative by constructing competence and strengthening stakeholder engagements.”