Malaysian lender Hong Leong Islamic Bank (HLISB) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with fintech platform GoBarakah, with plans to build a new FinTech ecosystem that channels donations and funds to underserved communities.

The partnership, formed under the PayNet Cambah program by Malaysia’s national payments firm Payments Network Malaysia Sdn Bhd (PayNet), underscores the bank’s commitment to enhancing and strengthening its value-based intermediation (VBI) initiatives, as it consistently embeds VBI principles into its Shariah propositions and business strategies, HLISB said in a statement on last Thursday.

According to the statement, GoBarakah is a FinTech platform that enables corporate and public donations, or ‘funds for good’, to be converted into e-vouchers, ensuring that assets in charitable and philanthropic initiatives remain streamlined, traceable and transparent.

With GoBarakah as a platform, HLISB is creating a fintech-powered ecosystem that allows it to deliver social financing more effectively to underserved communities, thus expanding and further digitalizing its VBI and community investment initiatives.

“At HLISB, we believe in the power of strategic collaboration to generate collective impact,” said Dafinah Ahmed Hilmi, Chief Executive Officer of HLISB.

“In line with our goal of being a digital-focused and community-centric bank, we are committed to partnering with key industry players to improve our banking solutions, widen our reach, and engage better with the communities we serve,” she said.

According to her, this new collaboration is a step in the right direction towards expanding our responsible banking endeavors and further enhancing our VBI ecosystem.

She opined that VBI is not only about community investment, it is also about building trust with the bank’s customers, the community, and other industry stakeholders.

“In line with this, she said a key component of our VBI philosophy is transparency and responsible disclosures, ensuring that we adhere to industry standards and keep stakeholders updated on our progress,

“It is with this mindset that we constantly seek innovative ways to integrate social impact into our core business operations and strategies,” she added.

She also highlighted that having GoBarakah on board is a valued addition to the bank’s VBI ecosystem, ensuring the bank conducts its social financing initiatives within a digital platform, ensuring consistency and transparency.

Meanwhile, Firdaus Mohamed, Chief Executive Officer of GoBarakah, said the partnership represents a new milestone in the platform’s growth.

“As a FinTech platform, we strive to digitalize the social financing process, making it easier and more transparent for underserved communities to receive the funding they need,

“By creating a seamless, digital ecosystem, corporations can provide funding and donations to social enterprises, welfare homes, and communities while also tracking when, how and where the funds are being utilized, ensuring the financing remains transparent, responsible, and most importantly addresses the exact needs of its beneficiaries,” he said.

With this collaboration with HLISB, he hopes to continue enabling and facilitating trusted transactions in empowering more communities in the future.

With the launch of this new collaboration, HLISB has embarked on its pilot social financing program with GoBarakah, with the first recipient being SURI Inspirasi (SURI).

SURI is a social enterprise dedicated to promoting a zero waste lifestyle, empowering under-privileged families and single mothers to build sustainable businesses by upcycling discarded fabrics into unique fashion items.

Utilizing partial funding from Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) iTEKAD program combined with its internal capabilities, the bank will be supporting 100 families in Langkawi to upskill, grow their businesses, and generate a stable income for their households, instilling the entrepreneurial spirit within the community while also preventing excess textile waste in Malaysia.

“The PayNet Cambah program focuses on growing communities and creating the much-needed sustainable cycles of prosperity among unserved communities,

“This can only be achieved through collaboration with various stakeholders to meet different needs as these communities grow and mature from unbankable to financially self-sustainable, whilst delivering positive social and environmental impact,” said Farhan Ahmad, Group Chief Executive Officer of PayNet.

“As the Langkawi community we nurtured takes on the next phase to financial independence, collaborators like HLISB who support their banking needs and GoBarakah providing traceability of benefit payments are essential to enable them to achieve a sustained growth trajectory,

“This will invariably result in shared prosperity,” he added.

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