ESG

As ESG commitments continue to gain momentum for Asia’s institutional investors, impact investing has emerged as an important strategy in addition to ESG integration, but caution is advised.

At Hong Kong FinTech Week, panelists shared their views on the capacity for fintech developments to improve regulatory and ethical standards, including ESG, across Asia’s financial markets.

Malaysia’s Joint Committee on Climate Change (JC3) met last month to outline five initiatives to expedite the market’s transition to net zero. FA spoke to experts to assess the regulatory environment that Malaysia is working to cultivate, in support of climate-conscious investment.

Bank of China has tapped the European bond market to finance steel projects in Hebei province, in a first of a kind issuance involving a financial institution.

Impact investing may be growing strongly but so, too, is impact washing. How investors comply with new regs, and turn a profit, is deciding a fast-changing investment landscape.

As international debt capital markets continue to grapple with myriad risks, experts assess the outlook for Asian dealmakers. They make a case for the issuers, sectors and markets that stand to benefit from emerging opportunities over months ahead.

From Indonesia’s resource-rich, onshore EV supply chain, to Hong Kong’s suite of sophisticated primary market products, experts assess the opportunity on offer to both regions’ capital markets, following formal signature of a strategic partnership between HKEX and IDX last week.

The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group has boosted its Sustainable Finance capabilities with new appointments across the bank’s teams in Australia, the UK and the United States.