The first is advancing the sustainability agenda. As Malaysia charts its path towards net zero, significant investments are required to fund a range of mitigation and adaptation efforts. 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  Initiatives such as renewable energy, green buildings and low carbon cities work to reduce Malaysia’s carbon footprint, whereas measures such as safeguards against rising sea levels and extreme weather are needed to improve climate resilience. These add up to an estimated RM350–450 billion of investment needed over the period of 2021–2050 to reach our net zero ambition. From the perspective of businesses including fintech startups, aligning with the nation’s sustainability objectives could require pivoting to new sustainable business models, recalibrating existing practices, adopting new technology, and subscribing to certification and mitigation efforts against possible climate-related disruptions. All of these will create significant demand for green and transition funds in the coming years. Public sector funding is being directed towards these efforts, but the private sector plays a critical role in completing the picture. Institutional investors and large asset managers, through their capital allocation, can directly steer the flow towards climate supportive activities. Institutional investors have the capacity to take on a stewardship or active ownership role, encouraging and influencing investee companies to seriously consider their sustainability impact. By choosing to actively support Malaysia’s sustainability journey, investors not only contribute to the generation of positive impact, but also best position themselves to benefit from green and transition business opportunities in the future. Progress has been promising.

In particular, capital, with its industry-wide vantage point, can influence stakeholders to invest in the necessary infrastructures to support an open data ecosystem, which in return benefits investors in the long run. This could help overcome individual inertia and align towards ecosystem-wide benefits, or a win-win for all. In advancing the development of an open data ecosystem, industry players need sufficient space to test and innovate. We are fully supportive of a market-led development approach in this. Eventually, convergence on standards could emerge that are fit for purpose. To this end, the Bank is fully supportive of industry collaboration in leading this front, which will also enable more use cases and fintech innovation. The Bank will still facilitate efforts to develop common standards for high-impact use cases identified by the industry, as well as key building blocks for data sharing in the financial sector. The key building blocks include consumer consent mechanisms, ethical use of data, liability management framework and dispute resolution mechanisms, as well as oversight arrangement for non-banks. Examples of high-impact use cases that stand to benefit from wider industry collaboration include promoting greater financial inclusion via the development of alternative credit scoring models, as well as consumer empowerment via more efficient financial planning. On the part of the authorities, having regulatory clarity is important to dispel any adverse perception or fear of investing in innovation. To this end, we will work with other financial regulators to streamline and refresh approaches to ensure continuously effective, relevant and proportionate regulations.