KUALA LUMPUR (June 21): Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd (KL:ABMB) said on Friday it has allocated RM1 billion of green receivables financing for small and medium enterprises participating in a newly-launched Centralised Sustainability Intelligence by Bursa Malaysia Bhd.
The bank's financing programme will see lower financing rates up to 300 basis points, Alliance Bank chief executive officer Kellee Kam said in a statement. “We hope to build momentum in assisting and enabling SMEs to decarbonise in an impactful manner,” Kam said.
On Friday, Bursa launched the Centralised Sustainability Intelligence (CSI) Solution to support Malaysian companies in integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) into their business strategies and operations to boost their competitiveness.
The solution will facilitate companies' ESG disclosures by providing tools to assess carbon emissions across their value chains and streamlining their sustainability reporting.
“The trusted source of ESG data from the CSI Solution will ensure quality and actionable information is available to scale this initiative, allowing more SMEs to be eligible to participate in our financing programme,” Kam said.
Meanwhile, Bursa Malaysia CEO Datuk Umar Swift encouraged more companies to join the solution’s ecosystem to unlock value and contribute to building a sustainable and resilient future for their business and for Malaysia.
The solution is ready for use by all listed and unlisted companies, as well as for conglomerates to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), Bursa said.
“We anticipate that the implementation of the CSI Solution will provide numerous benefits to Malaysia’s ecosystem, all aimed at increasing corporates and SMEs’ ESG profiles,” he said during the launch event.