We are working to anchor in Singapore centres of excellence to undertake Asia-centric research on green finance and build a talent pipeline. In October, we announced the launch of the first research and talent development institute focused on green finance – the Singapore Green Finance Centre – a collaboration between Singapore Management University and Imperial College Business School. Green FinTech Finally, let me focus on the role of FinTech in enabling trusted and efficient sustainable finance flows. We call it Green FinTech. For this year’s Singapore FinTech Festival, theFinTech Innovation Challenge focuses on challenges faced by financial institutions with respect to sustainability and climate risks. The enthusiasm for applying FinTech to sustainable finance has been overwhelming. We received more than 600 submissions from over 50 countries – the highest number of submissions since the Innovation Challenge began in 2016. MAS is pleased to announce we will be embarking on Project Greenprint – a technology platform aimed at promoting a green financial ecosystem. Project Greenprint aims to strengthen three key elements in that ecosystem: mobilise capital; monitor commitment; measure impact. First, mobilise capital. SMEs and FinTech firms working on green and sustainable projects often face difficulty accessing capital in an efficient manner. Project Greenprint provides a platform for these firms to connect with financial institutions and investors to access a wider pool of capital and green solutions. Second, monitor commitment. Investors and financial institutions supporting green projects must be able to monitor whether the projects are indeed meeting their sustainability commitments.

2  BIS Review 8/2010  Other challenges ahead for the global Islamic financial system The Islamic banking and finance industry is still relatively young and to a certain extent, is functioning at the experimental stage of development. At this stage, it requires an enabling and conducive environment to innovate new products and try out the various Shariah concepts in Islamic finance. However, going forward, there are some challenges that may impede our efforts in developing the Islamic financial system. A rigorous and well developed Shariah framework is needed to govern market practices of the Islamic financial institutions. To achieve consistency in the development of Islamic finance, all stakeholders involved in Islamic finance must work in a concerted manner on interpretation issues. Nonetheless, there has to be a check and balance between the need to have innovative and advanced products and the need to uphold the Shariah requirements. Efforts, time and resources must be pooled among the Islamic finance community to expand the industry and compete healthily with the larger conventional finance markets. As such, mutual recognition and understanding of different practices are essential in allowing Islamic finance to grow. For instance, Bursa Suq Al-Sila’ could also be used as a unifying application of Tawarruq practices by adopting acceptable best market practices for the Islamic financial institutions and at the same time observe the Shariah principles. In Malaysia, we adopt a stance of mutually recognising the various Shariah interpretations.