IslamicFinance.de

In Malaysia Islamic finance has demonstrated its resiliency in this difficult time with continuing issuances of green and sustainable sukuk, a trend that will continue over the short-to-medium term. To this end, Malaysia’s Employees Provident Fund (EPF) is enhancing its focus on integrating different ESG initiatives into its investment strategy. EPF conducts negative screening and excludes those stocks that it considers unethical. It engages very closely with the investee companies, regulators and asset managers, and has a rating tool to assess the quality of ESG adoption. Banks in Malaysia are also pushing various ESG initiatives. This comes as Bank Negara Malaysia, is coming up with a taxonomy that defines a green loan and ensures that banks indicate whether certain loans are green and, if so, how green they are.