Enabling Sustainability as The Nexus of ESG Finance

Money is pouring into ESG funds – where priority is given not just to financial performance, but also environmental, social and governance factors of a company. Can the trend for sustainability continue in this volatile economic environment? How can green fintech and data help banks and asset managers?

STACS and Everimpact headquartered in France today announced their partnership to provide banks and corporates involved in the carbon market with greater transparency and trust.

Since the establishment of the United Nation’s 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and the Paris Agreement, governments and members of society have been uniting on the frontier of sustainability.

Leading Singapore ESG FinTech firm, Hashstacs Pte Ltd (STACS) has achieved the globally-recognised ISO 22301:2019 certification in Business Continuity Management System for the provision of its blockchain infrastructure platform after an extensive audit of the company’s business continuity practices. The certification was awarded by TÜV SÜD PSB.

The Environmental Risk Questionnaire, launched earlier this year by the Association of Banks in Singapore for banks in Singapore, is now available for all corporates to digitally submit on U-Reg’s ESG reporting platform with direct connectivity and technical integration to ESGpedia by STACS.

A wave of green is sweeping through the economy. Everywhere, businesses of all sizes – from neighbourhood mom-and-pop shops to large corporates like BlackRock – are recognising the significance of sustainability as a core consideration for long-term economic success.

At STACS, we believe in equal opportunities for everyone across different departments. Through every employee’s learning experience, we encourage ownership, regardless of projects and roles.

Putting the spotlight on our Blockchain Engineer Intern, meet Loh Yih Hang, who shares his story on how he rides on the digital waves to upskill himself for his future tech career that propels a sustainable future, and the invaluable advice for fellow budding engineers.

Textile and Fashion Federation (‘TaFF’), the official association for the textile and fashion industry in Singapore, today announced their partnership with STACS, in partnership with the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Project Greenprint, and financial institutions to enable the textile and fashion sector to go green via holistic ESG data, to support effective green financing and capital stewardship for sustainability projects.

In May, we were generously hosted at the Everest Room, Google Asia Pacific, Singapore office for the launch of our ESGpedia platform in partnership with the MAS and key partners from the world of asset management, banks, exchanges, insurers, and financial services.

The Philippine Dealing System Holdings Corp. today announced the launch of a fully digitally native bond, issued on a distributed ledger technology network powered by STACS

With a common vision to enable sustainability amongst companies of all sizes, TÜV SÜD PSB and STACS today announced their partnership on ESGpedia, via TÜV SÜD’s Sustainability-as-a-Service (SaaS) programme. ESGpedia registry, developed by STACS, powers the ESG Registry of the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (‘MAS’) Project Greenprint, and was officially launched earlier this month (18 May) with more than 20 institutional partners, from both the financial and non-financial sectors, at the Project Greenprint Industry Showcase event.

STACS has developed and launched its ESGpedia registry platform. Powering the ESG Registry of the Monetary Authority of Singapore's (MAS) Project Greenprint, ESGpedia aims to improve sustainability data quality to support more effective sustainable finance. ESGpedia aggregates, records, and maintains the provenance of holistic and forward-looking ESG certifications and data of companies across various sectors and global verified sources on a single registry.

It’s becoming crystal clear that for the finance industry to make good decisions in terms of capital allocation to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) assets, we will need to improve transparency and trust at the data level.

STACS announces partnership with the Global Compact Network Singapore (GCNS) and its decarbonisation arm, the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC) Singapore, formed in collaboration with the World Bank's CPLC.

A Wall Street gold rush is underway in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing, but rating and ranking how companies measure up on these criteria remains a challenge for global capital markets and asset managers.

The technical integration allows for ongoing project data from U-Reg to be ingested on the ESGpedia registry, starting with the renewable energy sector from projects in Europe, with future plans to cover other sectors.

Announced during Budget 2022, it was revealed that by the end of this decade, per tonne of emissions will be increased from $5 per tonne of emissions to as much as $50-$80 - as part of a series of measures made by the Singapore government in tackling climate change.

STACS announces the launch of its full suite of ESG solutions for banks, stock exchanges, asset managers, corporates, and SMEs, as part of its refreshed vision as “The Nexus of ESG Finance”. The full suite of ESG solutions - ESGpedia, Vetta smart contract platform, and ESG Playbooks - aims to enable effective Sustainable Finance.

To mark International Women’s Day and the theme this year, “Break the Bias”, STACS had the pleasure of inviting remarkable women across various industries in the FinTech space, both from within the STACS team and our partners and clients, to share their wishes, experiences, and advice on this special day with us.

STACS appoints new leadership role, Sharon Yuen as the new Chief Commercial Officer, who will be steering the firm’s business development and sales efforts. Prior to joining STACS, Sharon worked in IHS Markit as Director of Sales, Head of ASEAN Sales and Strategic Alliances within ASEAN and Greater China at R3, and most recently served as Business Development Director at KX, focused on extending its financial services business in the region.

The platform eliminates and streamlines bespoke trade matching parameters, resolving trade exceptions in real-time for asset mangers. This is part of the long-term collaboration between STACS and CSOP to deploy a live solution for efficient OTC trade processing across different asset class. Future phases would move beyond trade matching to also facilitate the seamless settlement of trades.

STACS ESG Finance Research | It’s clear that governments, institutions, investors, and consumers are all aligned on the need for sustainability to be at the heart of how we live, play, work, invest, shop, and travel. Tremendous opportunities lie ahead of us as the world transitions from fossil fuels to green alternatives, and our Little Red Dot must position itself now to capture these falling treasures.

STACS ESG Finance Research | There are opportunities to be reaped in the world's quest towards sustainability, and green finance is quickly becoming integral to a business' profitability today. With the issuance of green bonds, ESG funds, and investment in sustainability projects rising exponentially, what is the current global status on sustainability standards to truly verify the greenness of projects?

In the year ahead, ESG will continue to be a major theme, with the emergence of new technology platforms to serve growing business needs around ESG certification and related finance. For the city-state to position itself as a leading global green fintech hub in Asia and beyond, we believe there are three key priorities it must not lose sight of.

STACS has been awarded the globally-recognised ISO certification for information security management systems. The certification is awarded for STACS’s DLT-based platform, Vetta, which enables enhanced ESG finance.

2021 has been a monumental one for us at STACS in the Green FinTech space. Collectively accelerating the Sustainable Finance agenda with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and our ecosystem of partners, we are excited to continue moving the needle on sustainable finance in the financial industry and across all sectors. Let’s take a look back at the key highlights of 2021!

The launch of the Greenprint ESG Registry, a common ESG data platform for all companies in Singapore by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and STACS, is a monumental step forward for Singapore in the sustainability space. As 2021 draws to a close, we reflect on Singapore’s status as the leading Green FinTech Hub in Asia, and what makes the country a pioneer in leveraging technology and data to enable Sustainable Finance.

The second edition of STACS Showcase, a celebratory and collaborative fintech event, happened during the week of Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF) earlier this month, 8 – 12 Nov, as a digital event.

Here are the Top 8 Highlights from the week.

STACS’ industry-wide blockchain-based Greenprint ESG Data and Certification Registry, in partnership with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), aims to provide accessibility to quality ESG data of various industry sectors through an aggregated platform, and will include sector-specific industry-recognised certifications and real-time processed dynamic data from other integrated technologies and sectorial platforms.

CO2X Pte Ltd (“CO2X”) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with key industry and association leaders from the Transport and Logistics, and Finance sectors. Witnessed by Law Chung Ming (Executive Director for Transport and Logistics, Enterprise Singapore (ESG)), and Kwok Quek Sin (Executive Director (Green FinTech), FinTech and Innovation Group, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)), the MoU signals the commitment to jointly develop a platform that will provide local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with accessible carbon tracking solutions and green financial services through a data-driven approach.

On Sep 30, an esteemed panel of speakers from SFA, Northern Trust, BNP Paribas, Eastspring Investments, and our very own Benjamin Soh, Managing Director from STACS, covered key topics on some of the milestones and macro trends that DLT has embarked on in the asset and wealth management space, and how it could be the potential fix to the business challenges faced today.

STACS is selected as private blockchain protocol provider for Project e-VCC, a global first initiative led by InvestaX, UBS, State Street, and CMS, and jointly supported by PwC Singapore and The Tezos Foundation.

End August, Green and Sustainable finance investments, banking, and fintech were some of the important themes that brought together a distinguished panel of speakers alongside our own Co-founder & Managing Director, Benjamin Soh.

As a partner of Summation Programme by SGInnovate and aligned with our commitment to support Deep Tech literacy in Blockchain, we seek to build strong talents in the industry.

Read on as Chen Ning, Software Engineer shares more about his journey at STACS.

STACS is one of seven startups globally to be admitted into the programme, and one of two within Singapore. Amongst the seven companies selected, STACS spearheads ESG fintech by enabling enhanced ESG finance and high quality carbon credits. Together with Mastercard, STACS will seek to expand and accelerate innovation around digital asset technology and make it safer and easier for institutions to adopt blockchain technology.

In celebration of the upcoming sixth anniversary of enterprise blockchain, STACS hosted a global industry panel with The ValueExchange on 7 July, with esteemed speakers from the Singapore FinTech Association, and the Union Bank of the Philippines.

Joined by an esteemed speaker lineup of industry leaders, STACS Managing Director Benjamin Soh discussed the latest trends and applications of digital technologies in ESG Finance alongside MAS, MUFG, and more. Headline topics include bridging a US$2.5 trillion green funding gap, to establishing a common green infrastructure for Singapore, right down to how COVID has brought a positive impact amidst climate change.

The partnership largely focuses on leveraging technologies to produce accurate insightful impact reports that are accessible and immutably stored on a common Distributed Ledger Technology data infrastructure for a single source of truth, for greater ESG impacts across industries.

STACS is featured in the May 2021 The World Economic Forum report, as one of the few live DLT platforms for effective Trade Lifecycle Management for the financial industry.

The industry partners contributed their various domain expertise towards the final ESG-enabling and interoperable end-to-end DLT-enabled bonds lifecycle management solution for the financial industry.

Digital assets and sustainability-linked bonds are a key component of the future of financial services, as the world transitions to green mandates in every industry including banking. Set in the context of tokenized securities in the securities market, STACS worked closely with the team at Deutsche Bank on digital assets interoperability across platforms and related custody.

Industry participants include UBS, Malaysia National Stock Exchange Bursa Malaysia and Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank).

Our inaugural joint podcast with The ValueExchange: DLT In the Real World — the facts & figures behind digitisation, as Barnaby Nelson, Chief Executive Officer at The ValueExchange and Nigel Lam, Product and Strategic Partnership Senior Manager at STACS break through the noise of the day and unravel the blockchain transformation of Trade Processing.

In celebration of Earth Day 2021, STACS co-hosted a Green FinTech panel at Bridge+ 79 Robinson Road in partnership with Tribe Accelerator, Alibaba Cloud, and enabled by flexible workspace Bridge+ by CapitaLand.

Investors include Wavemaker Partners, Tribe Accelerator, and Stellar Partners, bringing total funding to date to more than S$8 million.

The partnership largely focuses on supporting effective green and sustainability-linked loans, among other Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) financing formats.

Singapore’s financial services leadership must incorporate green finance to tackle existing issues and pave the way for a sustainable future.

Financial Market Infrastructures have time and again impacted all parties involved. In such unprecedented times and in the midst of disruptive transformation currently shaping the entire financial service industry, financial market infrastructure will not stay immune for much longer. In light of the GameStop and AMC fiasco, legacy infrastructure was shoved into the limelight once again. STACS shares with The Digital Banker on the impact of such infrastructure and discusses alternatives.

Tune in as our new Chairman, Ray Ferguson and Managing Director, Benjamin Soh dive into Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and green fintech as they discussed how STACS is seeking to provide a nexus between the financial ecosystem and the physical world for more effective implementation of green finance.

Eastspring Investments, BNP Paribas Securities Services and STACS collaborate to develop blockchain-powered trade lifecycle management solution, unlocking efficiencies while reducing costs for financial institutions.

 Ray Ferguson, the former CEO of Standard Chartered Singapore, has joined homegrown fintech start-up, STACS, a leading Singapore-headquartered fintech development company providing transformative technology to the financial services sector, as Chairman.

 Deutsche Bank Securities Services and STACS today announced their collaboration to jointly explore a proof-of-concept related to the technological and practical feasibility of digital assets interoperability, liquidity, cross-border connectivity, and smart contract templates, including the support of sustainability-themed digital bonds.

STACS announced today that it has become a portfolio company of PwC Singapore’s Venture Hub programme. The joint business relationship will bring about synergies between the two firms, while helping to elevate trust placed in distributed ledger technology (DLT) by the financial services industry and driving adoption.

STACS had the great pleasure to be the Grand Donor of the initiative “FinTech for Good”, organized by the Singapore FinTech Association (SFA). In the spirit of giving back to the community, STACS pledged to donate SGD20,000 to the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) U-Care Fund 2020 which aims to improve the welfare of low-income NTUC union members and their families.

STACS' key updates from the festival, including showcases that features collaborations of clients and partners from leading global financial firms all over the world, and finally our astounding win at the MAS Global FinTech Innovation Challenge Awards 2020.

STACS​ announced today that it has completed the bond on blockchain proof-of-concept with Malaysia’s National Stock Exchange, Bursa Malaysia, to facilitate the growth of the bond marketplace at the Labuan Financial Exchange.

STACS, a Singapore FinTech company focusing on Blockchain technology solutions for financial institutions, announced its partnership with EFG Bank to co-develop a Blockchain platform that will enhance and simplify the processes of structured products.

Project Harbour is centred around the usage of Distributed Ledger Technology DLT as a register in facilitating the growth of Labuan’s bond marketplace. The project will take place in Malaysia’s offshore market, Labuan, in collaboration with the Labuan Financial Exchange, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bursa Malaysia.