Climate FinTech Initiative: MAS and Google Cloud Team Up to Launch Point Carbon Zero Programme
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Google Cloud launched the Point Carbon Zero Programme to accelerate the development, incubation and scaling of climate-related FinTech solutions in Asia.
The programme, in association with MAS' Project Greenprint, aims to employ climate FinTech solutions to improve financial sector access to accurate and granular climate-related data for more efficient capital deployment towards green and sustainable initiatives.
Google Cloud will build the world's first open-source cloud platform devoted to climate finance to support the programme. This platform will simplify the deployment of climate FinTech solutions and their adoption by the financial sector.
Despite FinTech accounting for more than half of all startup financing worldwide, climate FinTech is still a nascent sub-segment. The programme intends to accelerate the anticipated growth of climate-related FinTech solutions in Asia during the next three years.
FinTech firms and solution providers will first be requested to contribute creative technical solutions to several climate finance issue statements co-created by the financial sector and real economy players.
One hundred solutions will be chosen for further development and evaluated by a pool of one thousand financial institutions for their capacity to enable finance flows towards green and sustainable projects in Asia.
In addition, the programme intends to enable 10,000 multinational organisations and small and medium-sized businesses to establish, track, and accomplish their sustainability objectives.
Participants will be asked to implement their solutions on Google Cloud's newly built open-source climate finance cloud platform.
Using Google Cloud's carbon-neutral infrastructure and data management capabilities, the platform will enable collaboration between FinTechs and financial institutions for the development, hosting, and scaling of climate FinTech solutions.
Dr Darian McBain, Chief Sustainability Officer, MAS, said:
“Singapore’s financial and FinTech sectors can play a pivotal role in the efficient channelling of private capital toward sustainable projects and businesses focusing on their long-term sustainability impact. The effective employment of technology allows us to greatly enhance the quality, availability, and comparability of the ESG data needed to facilitate these financial flows and accelerate our transition to a low-carbon economy. We see the Point Carbon Zero Programme as a key enabler for bridging ESG FinTechs, finance, and real economy businesses through a shared data and innovation platform.”
Sherie Ng, Country Director, Singapore and Malaysia, Google Cloud, stated:
“ESG programmes are a priority for the majority of organisations across the world, but less than 2 in 10 of these firms are currently able to measure and optimise their efforts. In collaboration with MAS, the Point Carbon Zero Programme aims to combine the collective powers of the industry with Google Cloud’s capabilities and innovation ecosystem to orchestrate impactful climate action. Our goal is to fuel an international movement—with data-enabling and informing green financial flows, to help countries and companies make quantifiable and meaningful progress, and hasten their transition into a carbon-free future.”
Justin Keeble, Managing Director, Global Sustainability, Google Cloud, commented:
“We are in the decade of action on sustainability. The Point Carbon Zero Programme is a great example of the power of combining collaboration and technology to leverage shared ESG data that will drive better, data-driven decision-making. Google Cloud provides solutions that promote sustainable practices for our global customers. In working with MAS, we’ll deliver climate finance solutions to help move faster toward a carbon-free future.”
Source: MAS
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