MAS and Industry to Pilot Digital Platforms for Better Data to Support Green Finance

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced today that it will partner the industry to pilot four digital platforms under Project Greenprint, to address the financial sector’s needs for good data on sustainability. Project Greenprint was launched in December 2020 to harness innovation and technology to promote a green finance ecosystem through helping to mobilise capital, monitor sustainability commitments, and measure impact.

One of the key challenges faced in sustainability financing is the difficulty in accessing high quality, consistent and granular sustainability data. Addressing these data gaps will enable financial institutions to direct capital towards sustainability projects in a more scalable way, effectively monitor their sustainability commitments, and quantify the risks and real-world impact of their portfolios.

Since the announcement of Project Greenprint last December, MAS has engaged the financial industry and other industry sectors to identify potential digital enablers to address the data challenges. These include interoperable data platforms that can aggregate new and existing sustainability data across multiple sectoral platforms and industry players; and enable sharing of the data across different stakeholders.

MAS will work with the industry to pilot four common utility platforms, with the pilots expected to be completed in the second half of 2022.

a) Greenprint Common Disclosure Portal, developed in partnership with the Singapore Exchange. The portal aims to simplify the Environment, Social & Governance (ESG) disclosure process by converting data inputs into different reporting frameworks as required under different jurisdictions and purposes. This makes company and project disclosures more easily accessible by international investors and financial institutions. Companies can also use the portal as an internal ESG monitoring and management tool.

b) Greenprint Data Orchestrator, which will aggregate sustainability data from multiple data sources, including major ESG data providers, utilities providers, and the Common Disclosure Portal, as well as other sectoral platforms such as GreenON2 , Olam International and SGTraDex and provide access to these key data sources. The platform will also enable new data insights to be generated through data analytics services to better support investment and financing decisions.

c) Greenprint ESG Registry, in partnership with Hashstacs Pte Ltd, will record and maintain the provenance of ESG certifications accorded by certification bodies in different sectors as well as data and metrics that are verified by qualified third party auditors. The blockchain-based registry will provide financial institutions, corporates, and regulatory authorities with a single point of access to these certified data, and facilitate trusted data flows.

d) Greenprint Marketplace, in partnership with API Exchange5 (APIX), will connect green technology providers in Singapore and the region to a community of investors, venture capital firms, financial institutions, and corporates to facilitate partnership, innovation and investments in green technology.

Using data from the Greenprint Data Orchestrator and ESG Registry, MAS will work on two use case projectsto facilitate green and sustainability-linked trade finance in the building and construction, and palm oil sectors. This will allow banks to digitalise their trade finance transactions and attain greater assurance that these transactions meet the criteria set out in their green and sustainability financing frameworks. Qualified supply chain players from these sectors can benefit from more seamless and timely access to green trade financing from banks. The projects will be led by United Overseas Bank, in partnership with DBS Bank, OCBC Bank and Standard Chartered Bank.

Mr Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer, MAS said, “Technology is a key enabler for the financial industry to meet the challenges of green transition and achieving net-zero emissions. Project Greenprint provides foundational digital infrastructure that aggregates new and existing ESG data from ground-up across multiple sectoral platforms and solutions to facilitate trusted ESG data flows between the financial sector and the real economy – both within Singapore and globally.”