Finance In Asia Research Articles

Genealogy and Implementation of Green Finance in Asia and Indonesia

Green finance continues to be developed in the ways with the international community’s agreed-realized sustainable development program. Therefore, through this article, we aim to trace genealogy and implementation of green finance in Asia, especially Indonesia, focused on: (a) providing a conceptual and practical explanation of green finance in Asia and Indonesia; (b) describing mechanisms and challenges faced by Asia and Indonesia in implementing green finance programs; and (c) examining strategic policies in Asia and Indonesia to enhance the involvement of institutional investors and private investments in green projects. The research method used in this study is library research. Through library research, relevant references were searched, studied, analyzed, and reflected upon as research findings. The literature sources include textbooks, journals, and other sources related to green finance. The research findings indicate that: (a) The signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015 impacted 196 countries legally bound and committed to including green development as a strategic policy of their respective countries; (b) The lack of clear mechanisms to realize green finance programs is a major challenge for countries in Asia and Indonesia; (c) To date, there are still few countries with binding policies for involving investors in green projects.
 Keywords: sustainable development, green finance, green investment

Digital Finance in Asia: Editors' Overview

Digital Finance in Asia: Editors' Overview

Masato Abe, Nick Freeman and Mike Troilo (Eds), Rethinking MSME Finance in Asia and the Pacific: A Post Crisis Policy Agenda

Masato Abe, Nick Freeman and Mike Troilo (Eds), <i>Rethinking MSME Finance in Asia and the Pacific: A Post Crisis Policy Agenda</i>

Beyond promises: Realities of climate finance justice and energy transitions in Asia and the Pacific

Climate change is already having substantial adverse impacts across the globe, and these are projected to worsen dramatically in years to come without rapid and far-reaching measures to transition to low carbon development. Crucially, massive financial investment will be necessary to fast track a low carbon transition and the level of finance required will arguably be well beyond the resources and capability of public finance alone. With a focus on climate finance in Asia and the Pacific and drawing empirical evidence from our work in Fiji and Indonesia, this article investigates complex realities of climate finance as it flows to the recipient countries. This article reveals how existing structures and power relations impact the outcomes of financing transitions to low carbon energy. The findings suggest that climate finance flows primarily to the most bankable, lowest risk, highest return, and often the largest scale projects. Moreover, the prioritisation of large-scale projects tends to result in preference for on-grid as opposed to off-grid renewable infrastructures, the reinforcement of technological preferences of powerful stakeholders, and the exclusion of smaller projects and developers. Consequently, it could exacerbate rather than ameliorate existing inequalities with the most vulnerable groups gaining little if any benefits from such finance. This article concludes by highlighting the importance of designing climate finance governance and financial products that could mitigate multi-scalar inequalities and design the mechanisms that internalise the need for critical, intersectional co-benefit delivery.

Comment on “Green Innovation and Finance in Asia”

Comment on “Green Innovation and Finance in Asia”

Comment on “Green Innovation and Finance in Asia”

Comment on “Green Innovation and Finance in Asia”

Green Innovation and Finance in Asia

Green innovation and green finance are two key components of sustainable development. In the most populous, fastest‐growing region in the world, Asian countries are pressed to maintain economic growth while addressing climate change and environmental externalities. Japan, South Korea, and China have each implemented policies to promote green innovation and finance conducive to such ends. While each country possesses unique capabilities, the extent to which they can promote environmentally adjusted multifactor productivity growth, green patent registrations, green bond issuances, green foreign direct investment, and environmental, social, and governance information disclosures stands to impact on their shifts to sustainable growth paradigms.

Book review: Unlocking SME finance in Asia: Roles of credit rating and credit guarantee schemes

Book review: Unlocking SME finance in Asia: Roles of credit rating and credit guarantee schemes

Green Finance in Singapore: Barriers and Solutions

Some Asian countries such as the People’s Republic of China and Japan are very active in green finance. This study reviews how green finance in Singapore is working, examines existing barriers, and suggests some solutions. Singapore, a well-established financial hub in Asia, aims to be a hub for green finance in Asia. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the central bank of Singapore, has formed a network with seven other central banks in the world called the Central Banks and Supervisors Network for Greening Financial System, which intends to promote sharing of experience and best practices in green finance with other countries. Along with forming the network, the MAS has established a Green Bond Grant scheme to promote and ensure the issuance of green bonds in Singapore. In parallel, the Association of Banks in Singapore published Guidelines on Responsible Financing to promote and support environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosures. The Singapore Exchange asks its member firms to strictly comply with the ESG disclosures. At an individual firm level in Singapore, City Development Limited (CDL), a real estate development company, and Development Bank of Singapore Limited (DBS), a commercial bank, issued Singapore’s first and second green bonds in 2017. The proceeds of the CDL green bond are allocated to finance retrofitting and upgrading of a commercial building in Singapore, while the proceeds of the DBS green bond are to be invested in renewable energy and climate change adaptation, among other uses. How successful the two green bonds are in meeting their pronounced goals and how well and effectively they contribute to the diffusion of renewable energy remains to be seen.

Fostering Green Finance for Sustainable Development in Asia

Placing the Asian economies onto a sustainable development pathway requires an unprecedented shift in investment away from greenhouse gas, fossil fuel, and natural resource intensive industries towards more resource efficient technologies and business models. The financial sector will have to play a central role in this ‘green transformation’. This study discusses the need for greening the financial system and the role of financial governance. It reviews the state of green lending and investment in Asia and provides an overview of green financial governance initiatives across Asia. It also identifies market innovations to increase green finance in Asia, barriers to green investments, and financial policy and highlights priority areas for policy makers.

Trade finance for sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific

Over the years, the Asia-Pacific region has maintained its global lead position as the largest user of trade finance. Actively involved in international trade, Asian and Pacific small and medium-sized enterprises have been important contributors for sustaining the region’s lead position. Juxtaposed to the interregional high position enjoyed by the Asia-Pacific region as the largest user of trade finance in the world market, trade within the region is facing a persistent demand-supply mismatch and widening of trade finance gaps. Small and medium-sized enterprises, despite being the largest contributors to Asian international trade, are more adversely affected than large companies, giving rise to operational constraints and challenges. This has prompted some policymakers, national governments and international organizations to address the issues, invite suggestions to halt the persistent trend of the widening of trade finance gaps and take suitable measures to ease the flow of trade finance. Recognizing the importance and significant role of trade finance as an engine of growth, this paper reviews the status of and constraints to easy access to trade finance in Asia and the Pacific; assesses trade finance gaps estimated by institutional surveys; and identifies emerging issues and challenges, especially those faced by the small and medium-sized enterprise sector. Analysing the resultant policy implications, the paper finally brings to the forefront a set of remedial measures, presents recommendations together with a road map for policymakers to consider for implementation. The recommendations are innovative and suggestive of national action and regional cooperation.

Infrastructure Investment, Private Finance, and Institutional Investors: Asia from a Global Perspective

This study evaluates infrastructure investment and finance in Asia from a global perspective. It provides an overview on infrastructure needs and the various sources of private finance, globally and within Asia, and creates a bigger picture for the demand and supply of capital for infrastructure by using a simple framework, i.e., percentages of gross domestic product.

Trade Finance: A Catalyst for Growth in Asia

While large businesses have resumed international trade at levels seen before the financial crisis, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have not fared as well. For these firms — the backbone of economies everywhere — growth is impeded by the limited availability of bank loans to finance trade. The problem is especially acute for SMEs in Asia, the world’s largest trading region and the one most reliant on trade finance.This report points out the major impediments to financing in the region and recommends regulatory and procedural changes. It assesses the state of trade finance in Asia, paying particular attention to the ASEAN countries and the needs of SMEs. It emphasizes that to succeed, regional efforts to integrate trade law and procedures must be combined with the replacement of paper documents with electronic transactions, as well as standardized procedures across countries.For investors, the use of trade receivable assets, through securitization or direct investment, could be an attractive alternative in an environment of low interest rates. They offer appealing alpha yields, consistent returns, low volatility, “real economy” investment, and lower default rates than other interest-based assets. Also, the behavior of these assets can be uncorrelated to the market, offering portfolio risk diversification.

From the Guest Editor: A Special Issue for Asian Consumer and Family Economics Association (ACFEA)

This special section of the Journal of Family and Economic Issues has six papers originally presented at the Tenth Biennial Conference of Asian Consumer and Family Economics Association, held at National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan in July of 2014. During the conference, more than 80 papers were presented with more than 120 scholars in attendance. After soliciting submissions from presenters at the conference and blind-peer reviewing process of excellent referees, only six articles were accepted for this Special Issue. Prior to getting into the details of each paper, I would like to say that this collection of papers is a must read if you are interested in frontier research in the area of family economics and consumer finance in Asia. As the guest editor, I tried to include papers that addressed family issues of current concern that also complemented each other in some way. I also tried to include consumer issues that are currently prevalent in Asia. Most research studying family financial behavior of racial/ethnic groups has ignored Asian households or arbitrarily combined them with other racial/ethnic groups. In the first paper, Hanna, Lee, and Lindamood treated Asian households as a separate racial/ethnic group and suggested that Asian households should be analyzed as a separate group and should not be combined with other racial/ethnic groups for comparison purposes. As the decreasing fertility rate has become a prevalent issue, in the second paper, Huang, Chiang, and Pan empirically explored the possible effect of crime on fertility and concluded that crime did have a significantly negative effect on fertility in Taiwan under consideration of spatial dependence of fertility rate, although the magnitude was modest. Moreover, as investment in the securities markets is vital to households’ wealth accumulation and financial security, the third paper by Yao and Xu provided insight into the long-term financial security of Chinese households and found that self-assessed investment knowledge and having a long-term financial plan were positively associated with Chinese households’ participation in the securities markets. In order to better comprehend the factors associated with family’s poverty dynamic status, Surachman and Hartoyo used a stratified random sample from four sub-districts in West Java, Indonesia to reveal that family of origin played an important role in determining the welfare status of individuals through parental investment in children’s human capital. With respect to household saving issue, Poon and Hon found that the disparities in the distribution of household savings in Hong Kong were more serious than disparities in household income or expenditures. Their analysis also revealed that the major household saving motive was ‘‘precautionary’’ and the key determinant of household savings was income, implying that the life-cycle hypothesis of savings could be applied in Hong Kong. In the last paper, Kim and Hong investigated the impact of catastrophic health expenditures (CHE) on life satisfaction in South Korea and concluded that the effect on life satisfaction of having CHE varied among the household groups, mainly in terms of income level and type of medical benefit programs. Households in the poverty-National Health Insurance (NHI) group exhibited much lower satisfaction compared to other groups when they experienced CHE. & Jr-Tsung Huang jthuang@nccu.edu.tw

PENGUATAN LABORATORIUM BANK SYARIAH UNTUK MENDUKUNG PERKEMBANGAN INDUSTRI KEUANGAN SYARIAH

Islamic banking in the last two decades has grown rapidly. This rapid progress is inseparable from the government attempts to makeIslamic banking Islamic financial world as a trendsetter. However, tomake Indonesian Islamic banking as a trendsetter Islamic finance in Asia still faces obstacles, especially the availability of human resources from theuniversity. Role of the real banking Laboratory very urgent to provide a source for learning as well as socialization media education on academic community . This paper seeks to provide an overview based on the author’s experience to establish a laboratory, starting from the pioneering phase to the technical implementation of the synergy with student learning model.

PENGUATAN LABORATORIUM BANK SYARIAH UNTUK MENDUKUNG PERKEMBANGAN INDUSTRI KEUANGAN SYARIAH

Islamic banking in the last two decades has grown rapidly. This rapid progress is inseparable from the government attempts to makeIslamic banking Islamic financial world as a trendsetter. However, tomake Indonesian Islamic banking as a trendsetter Islamic finance in Asia still faces obstacles, especially the availability of human resources from theuniversity. Role of the real banking Laboratory very urgent to provide a source for learning as well as socialization media education on academic community . This paper seeks to provide an overview based on the author’s experience to establish a laboratory, starting from the pioneering phase to the technical implementation of the synergy with student learning model.

Changes in Development Finance in Asia: Trends, Challenges, and Policy Implications

There have been shifts in the composition and nature of development finance in Asia, such as the mainstreaming of private sources of finance and the emergence of domestic resources potentially available for development purposes. In parallel, new trends and challenges are identified in such areas as the transformation of development aid, public–private partnerships, and green finance. A common challenge is how to strengthen financial intermediaries for longer term sustainable financing from domestic and external sources for investment serving development purposes. To address this, policymakers should bear in mind policy coherence and consistency from macro, sector, and micro perspectives. For various financial resources to bring about tangible benefits, policymakers should take account of complementarities and synergies among the full range of available financial resources. The effective utilization of private sources of finance depends on commercial viability. The key to success is incentive design and risk mitigation measures.

Comment on “Changes in Development Finance in Asia: Trends, Challenges, and Policy Implications”

Comment on “Changes in Development Finance in Asia: Trends, Challenges, and Policy Implications”

Comment on “Changes in Development Finance in Asia: Trends, Challenges, and Policy Implications”

Comment on “Changes in Development Finance in Asia: Trends, Challenges, and Policy Implications”

Fostering Infrastructure Finance in Asia based on Korean PPI Experiences

Fostering Infrastructure Finance in Asia based on Korean PPI Experiences