I greatly enjoyed this workshop we co-hosted with our Malaysian colleagues.  It was a chance to talk about innovations in SME finance in a country that is pushing the frontiers in this area in many ways.  We talked about alternative products, alternative institutions, and about the role the growing Islamic finance field can play in improving finance for smaller firms by renewing a focus on asset-based financing.  We paid particular attention, due to our focus on APEC policy matters, on the implications of this innovation for regulator, and this attracted considerable attention in the media, as you can see in this press article.
 
Speakers included international experts such as Giuseppe Gramigna, Chief Economist of the US Small Business Administration, Dr. Robin Varghese of the Policy and Economics Research Council (PERC), John Owens, the lead advisor on digital finance issues for the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, Shigehiro Shinozaki of the Asian Development Bank, and Ahmed Mohamed Tawfick Rostom from the World Bank's Islamic finance global team.  They also included key regional and local experts such as Dato' Hafsah Hashim, CEO of Malaysia's SME Finance Corporation, Ms. Salinee Wangtal, Chairman of the SME Development Bank of Thailand, Geoffrey Heenan, IMF Resident Representative, Jamaludin Bujang, CEO of Malaysia Venture Capital Management, and Leo Shimada, CEO of Crowdonomic, a regional crowdfunding platform. 

The presentations from the workshop are found through the link given below. 

I welcome further discussion of the event from any and all.

matt