S’pore firm STACS partners MAS to build blockchain-based ESG Registry

Throughout the Singapore Fintech Pageant final month, the Financial Authority of Singapore (MAS) introduced that it’ll accomplice the {industry} to pilot 4 digital platforms below Challenge Greenprint to handle the monetary sector’s wants for good information on sustainability.

Challenge Greenprint was launched in December 2020 to harness innovation and know-how to advertise a inexperienced finance ecosystem by serving to to mobilise capital, monitor sustainability commitments, and measure impression.

In accordance with MAS, one of many key challenges confronted in sustainability financing is the problem in accessing prime quality, constant and granular sustainability information.

Addressing these information gaps will allow monetary establishments to direct capital in direction of sustainability initiatives in a extra scalable approach, successfully monitor their sustainability commitments, and quantify the dangers and real-world impression of their portfolios.

“Know-how is a key enabler for the monetary {industry} to fulfill the challenges of inexperienced transition and attaining net-zero emissions,” mentioned Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer at MAS.

“Challenge Greenprint offers purposeful digital infrastructure that aggregates new and current surroundings, social, and governance (ESG) information from ground-up throughout a number of sectoral platforms and options to facilitate trusted ESG information flows between the monetary sector and the true economic system – each inside Singapore and globally.”

For the reason that announcement of Challenge Greenprint, MAS has engaged the monetary {industry} and different {industry} sectors to determine potential digital enablers to handle the information challenges.

One of many 4 digital platforms it’s at the moment piloting is the Greenprint ESG Knowledge and Certification Registry. That is developed in partnership with native fintech agency Hashstacs Pte Ltd (STACS), and the pilot is predicted to be accomplished within the second half of 2022.

What does the registry do?

The blockchain-based registry will report and keep the provenance of ESG certifications accorded by certification our bodies in several sectors, in addition to information and metrics which can be verified by certified third-party auditors.

This primarily offers monetary establishments, corporates, and regulatory authorities with a single level of entry to those licensed information, and facilitate trusted information flows.

“It’s a registry that the monetary {industry} sorely wants, as a result of in relation to sustainable finance, there’s usually lack of full info. So this ESG registry will be capable of present information in a single single place,” defined Benjamin Soh, managing director of STACS throughout a digital media roundtable held on Tuesday (Dec 1).

“Will probably be an industry-wide library that can retailer ESG information and certificates. The general goal is to permit establishments, monetary buyers to have steady monitoring of their ESG commitments to mobilise investments extra successfully.”

Benjamin identified that there’s an current downside of fragmented ESG information swimming pools. Many various firms are on the street to sustainability, however they’re all in very particular and fragmented {industry} sectors.

The best way to get to sustainability is subsequently very bespoke. It’s very troublesome for a financial institution at present to actually perceive its impression each time it makes an funding or a mortgage. So what we’re searching for to do right here with the ESG Registry is that we’ve deployed a blockchain. [It will] function a single supply of fact, cross-cutting over numerous {industry} sectors.

– Benjamin Soh, managing director of STACS

By APIs, the ESG Registry can assist numerous downstream integrations akin to to assist monetary establishments in commerce financing and portfolio monitoring.

Monetary establishments will profit from simpler entry to a tamperproof pool of digitally processed information on sustainability initiatives throughout totally different {industry} sectors.

As a part of the blockchain, STACS has additionally deployed a couple of totally different modules that are already built-in to the totally different sectors. It will assist to firstly, obtain and ingest ESG certificates from totally different sectors.

These certificates are the precise certificates that every sector has produced. For instance, there’s the Inexperienced Mark for the Constructing and Development Authority (BCA) and Honest Commerce for agriculture. These are numerous certifications by totally different our bodies that we would like to have the ability to ingest and into the platform. In different phrases, we digitalise them.

– Benjamin Soh, managing director of STACS

Secondly, many of those sectors have a wide range of applied sciences. For instance, they’re utilizing a wide range of Web of Know-how (IoT) information analytics — satellites, drones, et cetera — to seize sure ongoing information from the totally different industries.

With that in thoughts, STACs additionally wish to seize a few of this ongoing information on an aggregated foundation and retailer them on the registry.

“They’re in a position to validate the information on our platform to carry out ESG scoring or ESG rankings. They’re additionally in a position to retrieve experiences from our platform on-demand anytime to assist higher portfolio situation evaluation,” he mentioned.

Lastly, STACS need to have the ability to enter numerous {industry} commonplace protocols for reporting akin to terminologies and taxonomies, such that customers will be capable of improve their monetary sector ESG reporting.

The ESG Registry will primarily join to varied certification our bodies and trusted sectorial platforms and purpose to assist end-to-end traceability and transparency of full enterprise worth chains. Additional information aggregation of ESG information may be carried out, creating the potential of steady impression reporting and monitoring.

The target is to considerably enhance the standard of ESG information accessible, such that monetary establishments can extra confidently mobilise capital in direction of ESG initiatives, within the type of sustainability-linked financing, investments or insurance coverage, and carbon credit buying and selling. 

The ESG Registry platform goals to resolve two pertinent points in inexperienced finance — the dearth of transparency and belief in ESG certifications, and the inefficiencies in accessing totally different certification requirements and necessities in several industries domestically, and even globally.

MAS is joyful to work with Hashstacs in bringing collectively totally different gamers in several industries and sectors to offer, confirm, certify and share information in a safe and environment friendly method, in order to unlock inexperienced finance.

– Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer at MAS

STACS see elevated collaboration curiosity

“STACS has been within the enterprise since 2019, offering digitalisation and automation by our award-winning blockchain-based know-how to monetary establishments. Over the past two years, we’ve managed to digitalise many components of the monetary providers processes,” mentioned Benjamin.

“Not too long ago, we’ve began to become involved with monetary establishments on the particular side of sustainable finance, and that excites us as a result of we wish to assist deliver ahead the way forward for sustainable finance.”

It has deep experience in offering DLT infrastructure for digitalisation within the monetary sector. Its purchasers and companions embody banks, inventory exchanges, asset managers, and corporates in several sectors. It has recognised the significance of sustainability, increasing its focus to technologically improve and allow sustainable practices. 

STACS was additionally a winner on the MAS International FinTech Innovation Problem Awards 2020 below the Sustainability and Inexperienced Finance theme and awarded the Greatest FinTech ESG Resolution (Asset & Wealth Administration) on the DigFin Innovation Awards 2021. 

The ESG Registry is at the moment deployed in its beta section, with prepared modules and APIs for integration, and can proceed to be enhanced primarily based on collective inputs from {industry} companions over the upcoming months. 

In accordance with STACS, it has acquired expressions of curiosity to discover collaboration with the ESG Registry from numerous monetary establishments and organisations, akin to Aviva Singlife, Citi, OCBC Financial institution, UOB, SGTraDex and Surbana Jurong.

“It’s heartening to see extra dedication within the inexperienced and sustainability area by rising demand from monetary establishments for higher monitoring and measurements of inexperienced impacts,” mentioned Benjamin.

“Collective efforts and synergies between DLT and different applied sciences/platforms will expedite the achievement of a greener nation by servicing many international main monetary establishments and empowering all establishments (monetary and non-financial) to unlock impactful ESG methods for larger industrial worth.”

Featured Picture Credit score: STACS / MAS