Tracking Progress

In recent years, the concept of social finance has gained prominence in Malaysia’s policy and financial circles, particularly with respect to providing support to the underprivileged. This report provides an overview of global good practices and provide specific recommendations for Malaysia to develop the necessary architecture for disclosure of social finance and impact monitoring by banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions (FIs). This report also examines key issues and opportunities related to impact monitoring and reporting of social finance in Malaysia, and aims to provide guidance to Malaysian FIs through self-benchmarking vis-à-vis global good practices to improve the outcomes from their social finance projects. The report is structured as follows: Chapter 1 presents an overview of global and local trends in impact and social impact investing, definitions of social finance, and the concepts of impact monitoring and evaluation. Chapter 2 explores the common principles of impact monitoring, evaluation and disclosure established by international standard-setting bodies and applications by Environment, Social, Governance (ESG) and impact investors. Chapter 3 presents case studies on impact monitoring, evaluation and reporting by global social finance entities and impact investors. Chapter 4 examines the current practices and challenges of impact monitoring and reporting in Malaysia. Finally, Chapter 5 offers recommendations to policymakers to enhance the Malaysian social finance and impact monitoring framework and tools.