ESG

Walk through a supermarket today and almost everything seems to promise something. Natural. Wholesome. Clean. Better for you. Turn the package around, however, and the story can become considerably more complicated. Chief of Inspirations, Chief of Creations and Chief of Growth of Love Earth Organic – Samantha Ma, Jason Leong and Natasha Mah. Love Earth Organic was founded in 2011 around a deceptively simple idea: eating well should not require consumers to become food scientists. Fifteen years later, that belief has grown into a Malaysian organic and natural food business with more than 180 products, 4,600 retail touchpoints and a presence in 15 countries. Its products span superfoods, nuts, seeds, snacks, seasonings and breakfast cereals to nutrition for babies and mothers. The company says one Love Earth product is now sold every 10 seconds. Yet the philosophy behind those numbers can be reduced to four words: “We sell what we eat.” For Love Earth, that sentence has become less a slogan than a test.   Making Organic Ordinary When Love Earth entered the market, organic food in Malaysia occupied a very different space. It was expensive, relatively niche and frequently confined to specialist retailers. Healthy eating could feel less like an everyday choice than membership in an exclusive club. Love Earth saw an opportunity not simply to sell more organic products, but to make them approachable. The customer it had in mind was not an abstract wellness consumer. It was the working parent shopping for a family, the young couple trying to eat better, or anyone wanting cleaner ingredients without dramatically changing the way they lived—or spent. That proposition has become more relevant as consumers pay closer attention to labels and ingredients. Awareness has increased, but Love Earth argues that information is useful only when consumers have practical alternatives they can afford and understand. Its answer has been to bring natural and organic food closer to the everyday Malaysian pantry.   Why Control Matters Eight years ago, the company made a decision that changed the economics—and responsibility—behind that promise: it began building its own manufacturing capability. The logic was control. If a brand promises consumers uncompromising quality, relying entirely on others to produce its food eventually creates a limit to how much of that promise it can personally guarantee. Now Love Earth is taking that strategy further. Its first owned factory in Rawang is targeted for 2027, with the company working towards production-level organic certification and greater proprietary formulation capability. The investment is part of a broader shift towards what Love Earth describes as “depth before breadth.” After building a portfolio across multiple food categories, the next stage is less about adding products for the sake of expansion and more about deepening the relationship consumers have with the brand. That discipline means sometimes saying no. Love Earth says it has rejected formulations that would have lowered costs but compromised its standards, as well as distribution opportunities that offered greater reach at the expense of its positioning. It has consistently recorded year-on-year growth of more than 20%, but management argues that the more revealing measure is whether families continue choosing the brand. Its five-year ambition reflects that thinking: 30 million healthier choices made.   When Founders Have to Let Go Growth has created another challenge: how to preserve conviction when the founders can no longer personally oversee everything. Love Earth now employs more than 130 people. Its co-founders have had to move from operators to executives, while developing a middle-management structure capable of carrying the business forward. Processes that worked for 10 people no longer work for 50. Structures built for 50 have to change again at 130. The company has introduced structured SOPs and quarterly OKRs, embraced AI across functions and moved towards greater employee empowerment and flexible working arrangements. The difficult part is ensuring systems scale without allowing the original purpose to disappear inside them.   From Organic Food to Health Brand Love Earth’s next ambition is larger than food. It wants to become Malaysia’s most trusted health brand, building a relationship with families that extends across different stages of their wellness journey. International expansion into Europe and the Middle East forms part of that plan, alongside B Corp certification, ISO-grade management systems and a stated goal of PLC-readiness by 2028. These are significant ambitions for a company that began by trying to make organic food less intimidating. But perhaps the most difficult target is also the least measurable. Fifteen years from now, Love Earth wants consumers opening one of its products to recognise the same promise that started the company in 2011. Because products can multiply. Factories can grow. Markets can expand. Trust is much harder to manufacture.  

For decades, food manufacturers have been trying to save consumers time. The trade-off was often understood: the faster the meal, the further it moved from the flavours, ingredients and rituals that made it worth eating in the first place. Asia Food & Beverage Sdn Bhd is betting that this compromise is becoming obsolete. The Malaysian manufacturer and distributor has built a portfolio around translating familiar Asian flavours into products designed for modern life. Traditional herbs, spices and pre-mixed herbal soups sit alongside freeze-dried coffee, instant white coffee, milk tea, instant noodles, cooking pastes and popcorn. Key Account Manager at Asia Food & Beverage Sdn Bhd – Koh Kai Bin. Through brands including Uncle Sun, Vilavie, Sunsoya and Old Village, the company serves retailers, supermarkets, wholesalers, importers and distributors while pursuing a wider international market for Malaysian food and beverage products. But the more interesting proposition is not the size of the portfolio. It is the problem the company is trying to solve: how do you compress hours of preparation into minutes without stripping away what made the food distinctive?   Putting Time Back on the Menu Consider herbal soup. Traditionally, creating it can involve sourcing specific ingredients, understanding how they work together and allowing them to simmer over time. The result carries associations that go well beyond convenience—family, culture, wellness and the familiar taste of home. Asia Food & Beverage has made converting such experiences into accessible formats one of its core strengths, particularly through Uncle Sun’s pre-mixed herbal soups. The same thinking extends across its portfolio. A cup of coffee or a cooking paste may be an everyday product, but the company sees an opportunity in removing preparation complexity without removing the character consumers expect. Historically, the market often forced a choice. Instant meant convenient; authentic meant effort. Asia Food & Beverage positioned itself somewhere in between. Today, that middle ground is becoming more valuable as expectations rise. Consumers increasingly want convenience accompanied by better quality, consistency and products that fit more health-conscious lifestyles.   The Factory Gets Smarter Delivering that proposition at scale requires more than recipes. Asia Food & Beverage is investing in automation, digital integration and real-time inventory and production tracking as it modernises its manufacturing and supply-chain operations. The challenge is complexity. Producing across categories as different as herbs, powdered beverages and convenience foods requires quality control and inventory management to remain closely aligned with production. As volumes increase and brands expand internationally, small inefficiencies can quickly become larger operational problems. The company has consequently been moving away from siloed management towards a more data-driven model, giving teams greater visibility into what is happening across production and warehousing. That information is intended to move decision-making closer to the factory floor, allowing problems to be identified and addressed faster.   Saying No to Growth Asia Food & Beverage’s ambitions are international, but management is selective about how it intends to get there. Growth, in its view, is not simply a matter of producing more. The company is deliberately avoiding low-margin volume battles and highly commoditised price competition. It is similarly cautious about pursuing fashionable product categories that may generate attention but offer little connection to its manufacturing strengths. Instead, capital is being directed towards operational resilience, technology and product categories with repeat-purchase potential and the ability to scale internationally. That discipline extends to sustainability. Rather than framing sustainability around a single initiative, Asia Food & Beverage has concentrated on process improvements, quality assurance and operational efficiency intended to reduce waste and improve productivity. It has also remained selective about partnerships and expansion opportunities where short-term revenue could come at the expense of margins, quality or supply-chain reliability.   Taking Malaysian Flavours Further The next test is whether Asia Food & Beverage can take products rooted in familiar regional tastes and make them increasingly mainstream elsewhere. Its ambition is to expand its brands across broader international retail markets while moving towards greater digital automation throughout manufacturing and logistics. That will require more than new machinery. The company’s workforce must also make the transition from traditional manufacturing practices towards a culture where data moves quickly from warehouse and production floor to management decision-making. There is an interesting paradox at the centre of that strategy. Asia Food & Beverage is using increasingly sophisticated technology to sell something fundamentally familiar: the taste of home, without the hours traditionally required to create it. In the global race to make food faster, the company’s opportunity may lie in ensuring convenience no longer feels like a compromise.

You can buy new machinery. Build a bigger factory. Replicate a recipe. But there is one part of this soy sauce business that money cannot recreate: 70 years of living culture. Director & General Manager of Thean Heong – Nicky Woo and Ong Poh Liang. Inside its fermentation vats exists a microbial ecosystem cultivated over seven decades—one that has become inseparable from the flavour of every batch it produces. Combined with traditional sun-brewing and a fermentation cycle that can take six to 12 months, it represents something increasingly rare in modern food manufacturing: a process that refuses to be hurried. For Nicky Woo and Kelvin Ong, that patience is not nostalgia. It is a competitive advantage. Their business produces naturally brewed artisanal soy sauces and premium condiments for home cooks, high-end restaurants and food industry partners. At a time when manufacturing technology can dramatically accelerate production, the company has made a deliberate decision to protect the one ingredient it believes cannot be engineered: time.   When Faster Isn’t Better The business traces its differentiation to a longstanding gap in the soy sauce market. Decades ago, chemically hydrolysed alternatives offered manufacturers a faster route to production but often produced a markedly different flavour profile. Today, the conversation has moved further. Consumers are increasingly scrutinising what goes into their food, creating demand for cleaner labels, fewer ingredients, reduced use of chemical preservatives and greater transparency around raw materials. For the company, this has reinforced the relevance of traditional fermentation rather than diminished it. Its approach combines longstanding brewing knowledge with modern food production standards. Technology is welcomed where it can improve safety, consistency and precision—but not when it interferes with the natural fermentation process. The principle guiding investment is straightforward: modernise the operation without modernising away what makes the product distinctive.   A Competitive Advantage That Is Alive Perhaps the company’s most unusual asset cannot be purchased, installed or easily replicated. Over seven decades, its fermentation vats and production environment have developed their own microflora ecosystem, supported by proprietary koji mould strains. This hyper-localised microbial environment contributes to the distinctive flavour profile of its naturally fermented sauces. In practical terms, the factory itself has become part of the product. A competitor can purchase similar machinery and ingredients, but reproducing a microbial environment developed over generations is considerably more difficult. Preserving that advantage while scaling presents its own challenges. Natural fermentation remains sensitive to agricultural inputs, outdoor conditions and ambient temperatures, meaning production involves managing variables that conventional manufacturing often attempts to eliminate. The company has responded by bringing together two generations of expertise. Its leadership structure has evolved from a traditional family-controlled hierarchy towards a more professionalised organisation, pairing veteran master brewers with younger food scientists. Traditional knowledge is increasingly supported by scientific measurement and data, allowing expertise accumulated over decades to be preserved while improving consistency.   Choosing Premium Over Volume That philosophy also determines what the business will not do. Growth is being pursued through premiumisation and expansion into international markets where consumers value artisanal food heritage. But management has no intention of entering mass-market price wars or shortening fermentation cycles simply to increase output. Chemical accelerators that could reduce production time are deliberately off the table. It is a strategic trade-off: accepting limitations on short-term volume to protect the characteristics on which the brand’s long-term value depends. The same willingness to make difficult trade-offs extends to sustainability. Over the past 14 months, the company moved away from a cheaper plastic packaging supplier and invested in a closed-loop glass bottle recycling system. Solar-powered temperature monitoring has also been introduced across its fermentation yards. These decisions temporarily compressed margins but reduced single-use plastic waste while introducing technology into the brewing process without replacing the tradition behind it.   Taking Tradition Somewhere New The company’s next chapter will test how successfully a product rooted in heritage can respond to a new generation of consumers. Nicky Woo and Kelvin Ong are preparing to develop a functional wellness range encompassing certified low-sodium, organic and allergen-free soy sauces—without sacrificing the traditional umami profile at the heart of the product. Achieving this will require stronger internal R&D capabilities and training for traditional blending teams to meet stringent international organic certification standards. It is an intriguing direction for a brewing culture seven decades in the making. The company is not preserving tradition by refusing to change. It is using science, technology and changing consumer expectations to give an old process new relevance. In an industry constantly searching for ways to make food faster, its most valuable advantage may be knowing exactly what should never be rushed.  

The modern office is no longer a static environment. How companies work, organise teams and use space continues to evolve—and the businesses responsible for creating those environments are having to evolve with it. For Yuansheng Furniture Sdn Bhd, that shift is changing what it means to be a furniture manufacturer. The Malaysian company specialises in office system furniture, partitions, cabinetry and customised interior fit-out solutions for commercial and corporate environments. With in-house manufacturing facilities, CNC machinery and digital design technologies, Yuansheng manages the process from design development and production through to delivery and installation. Serving corporate clients, interior design firms, contractors and project management companies across Malaysia and Singapore, the company has built its reputation around customisation, consistent quality and reliable execution. But its next phase is increasingly about turning those manufacturing strengths into a more integrated solutions business.   Technology Changes the Factory At the centre of that transition is digitalisation. Yuansheng is investing in ERP systems, digital design workflows and production optimisation software to create greater accuracy and visibility throughout its operations. For a business dealing with customised projects, the implications are significant. Designs can change, deadlines can tighten and specifications can differ substantially from one project to another. Connecting design more closely with production allows Yuansheng to respond to those variables while reducing errors and inefficiencies. Its combination of digital design systems, CNC technology and in-house production also provides greater control over the journey from concept to finished product. That integration is one of the company’s less visible competitive advantages. While customers ultimately see the completed workspace, much of the value is created through the coordination, planning and manufacturing discipline behind it.   Not All Growth Is Good Growth As Yuansheng expands, it is also becoming more deliberate about the type of business it wants to build. Revenue and project volume matter, but management views stronger operational capability, product quality, customer relationships and resilience as equally important measures of progress. That means resisting the temptation to compete solely on price. The company deliberately avoids aggressively pursuing low-margin opportunities where commercial pressures could compromise quality or service standards. Instead, investment is being directed towards technology, systems and people that can strengthen its competitiveness over the longer term. It reflects a broader philosophy: scale should follow capability rather than come at its expense. Three priorities now guide that strategy—operational excellence, digital transformation and market expansion. Singapore remains an important market for the company, while a planned showroom investment is expected to create a stronger platform for customers to experience Yuansheng’s products, materials and capabilities firsthand.   A Different Kind of Sustainability The materials and energy behind the modern workplace are changing too. Yuansheng has been gradually adopting environmentally friendlier and lower formaldehyde-emission materials, including formaldehyde-free options where suitable. The move addresses both environmental considerations and growing attention towards healthier indoor environments—an increasingly relevant issue for the commercial spaces in which people spend much of their working lives. The company has also begun integrating solar energy into its operations as part of efforts to improve energy efficiency and reduce dependence on conventional energy sources. Neither transition happens without cost. Yuansheng acknowledges that these initiatives require additional investment and planning, but views them as long-term operational decisions rather than isolated sustainability exercises.   From Manufacturer to Solutions Provider Yuansheng’s next challenge is perhaps its most significant: changing how the business itself is positioned. Its ambition is to develop from a manufacturing-focused company into a more integrated solutions provider combining manufacturing capability with digital systems, customer engagement and greater regional reach. The new showroom will form part of that transition, alongside further investment in production optimisation and operational visibility. But transformation on the outside will require transformation within. Yuansheng expects to strengthen organisational capabilities, develop future talent and improve internal systems as the complexity and scale of the business increase. There is a larger shift taking place here. As offices evolve, customers are asking more of the companies that create them. Manufacturing capability remains essential, but so too are customisation, speed, technology, sustainability and the ability to manage an increasingly complex project from beginning to end. For Yuansheng, staying competitive means recognising that change early. The company may still manufacture the physical components of the workplace. Increasingly, however, its business is about building the systems, capabilities and solutions around them.  

For BIG ONION®, food may be at the heart of the business, but its ambitions increasingly extend beyond what is served on the plate. The Malaysian company is evolving from its traditional catering base towards a broader ecosystem spanning facilities management, franchise development, central kitchen capabilities and hospitality solutions. The shift reflects a market where clients increasingly expect food service partners to deliver not only quality, but also operational efficiency, consistency and the ability to scale. Managing Director of Big Onion Food Caterer Sdn Bhd – Foo Kuan Liang. BIG ONION® sees this evolution as a response to a fundamental change in the industry: managing food operations today is as much about people, systems and experience as it is about the meal itself.   Building an Ecosystem Around Food One of the gaps BIG ONION® identified early was the shortage of reliable food service partners capable of combining quality with operational efficiency at scale. Clients increasingly needed more than a supplier. They required partners capable of understanding manpower requirements, customer experience, operational consistency and the realities of maintaining service standards across different environments. Those requirements have become more complex as ESG considerations, technology, workforce management and brand experience play a larger role in corporate decision-making. BIG ONION® has responded by broadening its capabilities. Through facilities management and franchise development, the company is looking to create food service ecosystems that can address operational challenges while providing a foundation for longer-term growth. This means thinking beyond individual projects towards systems that can be replicated and scaled.   Growth That Goes Beyond Revenue That approach is also shaping how the company defines growth. For BIG ONION®, becoming bigger is not necessarily the same as becoming stronger. Its focus is increasingly on building a business that can create sustainable value for clients, employees, partners and communities. Operational capability is central to that strategy. As the organisation expands into areas such as facilities management and franchise development, maintaining consistency across a larger network becomes increasingly challenging. Growth introduces complexity in manpower, communication, quality control and decision-making. It has required the company’s leadership to move from being predominantly hands-on operators towards building stronger structures, clearer processes and teams capable of taking greater responsibility. The transition is significant. Leadership in a growing organisation is no longer simply about overseeing daily execution; it is about creating an operating model capable of functioning effectively as the business becomes larger and more diverse.   The Work Behind the Experience Much of BIG ONION®’s competitive strength, it says, happens away from public view. Behind a catering operation, large-scale event, facilities management contract or franchise business sits considerable coordination. Manpower must be deployed, problems resolved quickly, standards maintained and different operational components brought together. The company’s emphasis on adaptability and execution has therefore become an important part of its proposition. Its ability to respond under pressure while maintaining quality and client confidence is supported by the systems, processes and people behind each operation. In this sense, BIG ONION® views its competitive advantage not simply as the food it produces, but the operational ecosystem surrounding it.   Putting Sustainability Into Operations Sustainability is becoming another component of that ecosystem. Over the past 12 to 18 months, BIG ONION® has strengthened ESG practices across its operations, including more efficient resource management, efforts to reduce unnecessary wastage, increased adoption of paperless processes and improvements in operational planning. The company has also invested in systems, process improvements and employee development despite recognising that such investments may not produce immediate returns. It reflects a longer-term view of sustainability—one that connects responsible practices with operational resilience rather than treating ESG as a separate corporate exercise.   Building for Regional Potential BIG ONION®’s next phase will see it work towards becoming a more integrated food, hospitality and facilities management ecosystem with regional potential. Facilities management, franchise development, central kitchen operations, ESG-driven initiatives and strategic partnerships are expected to form important parts of that expansion. But the company acknowledges that external growth will require internal transformation. Greater standardisation, stronger systems, leadership development and digital integration will be necessary if the business is to scale without losing the agility and execution capabilities on which it has built its reputation. For BIG ONION®, the next stage is therefore not simply about entering more markets or adding more services. It is about creating an organisation capable of supporting them. As the food and hospitality industry becomes more complex, the businesses positioned to grow may be those capable of looking beyond individual services and building the infrastructure around them. BIG ONION® is betting its next chapter on exactly that.  

Satu Creative has launched the third edition of Creative Sprint, a venture development programme designed to help social enterprises strengthen their businesses, access funding and build industry partnerships. Creative Sprint 2026 will focus on three areas — Income Pathways, Heritage Conservation and Circular Solutions. The programme is supported by Yayasan Hasanah, Bank Simpanan Nasional (BSN), Digital Penang, Malaysian Business Angels Network (MBAN) and Artem Ventures. The partners will support participating social enterprises through funding, business development expertise, market opportunities and investment guidance. Satu Creative CEO Ahmad Azuar Zainuddin said Malaysia has many social entrepreneurs with ideas that can create meaningful impact, but stronger support is needed to help them grow. He said Creative Sprint aims to bring together organisations with different expertise to give social enterprises access to funding, knowledge, networks and business opportunities. Selected participants will take part in bootcamps, mentoring sessions and workshops covering areas such as business development, customer research, investment readiness, strategic partnerships and growth. They will also have opportunities to connect with entrepreneurs, investors, industry experts, mentors and potential funders. Yayasan Hasanah managing director and trustee Siti Kamariah Ahmad Subki said long-term investment in people, ideas and partnerships is important to creating lasting social impact. She said the Hasanah Social Enterprise Fund 2026, in collaboration with Satu Creative, provides social enterprises with opportunities to strengthen their businesses, learn from experienced professionals and connect with organisations that can support their growth. Applications for Creative Sprint 2026 are now open. The Central Region Bootcamp will take place in Kuala Lumpur from Aug 18 to 20, followed by the Northern Region Bootcamp in Penang from Sept 8 to 10. Each three-day programme will end with a Demo Day, where participants will present their ventures to ecosystem partners, mentors and industry leaders.

Malaysia’s initial public offering (IPO) market is entering a new phase focused on strengthening environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures, as companies are now required to provide more detailed information on their sustainability performance. ESGpedia vice-president Josef Acabo said such information is becoming increasingly important to investors in making investment decisions. He said ESG reporting requires companies to disclose how they manage issues such as carbon emissions, energy use, environmental impact and other sustainability matters, alongside their financial performance. Citing Deloitte’s Southeast Asia Mid-Year IPO Snapshot 2026, he noted that Malaysia’s capital market remained strong, with 36 companies listed in the first half of 2026, raising US$1.34 billion. However, he said investors are also placing greater emphasis on the quality of companies’ ESG disclosures, particularly as Malaysia’s National Sustainability Reporting Framework (NSRF) has expanded to cover all Main Market issuers this year. “Newly listed companies will feel a short-term compliance adjustment, but the greater risk to momentum would be weak disclosure, which global funds would simply price as a discount. Incomplete disclosure is treated as unpriced risk, and investors price it,” he told Bernama. Acabo said companies that fail to provide sufficient ESG information could face higher financing costs, lower valuations and more scrutiny from investors before they decide to invest. Reporting requirements are set to become more demanding in 2027, when companies will be required to disclose more information on Scope 3 emissions, which refers to carbon emissions generated across a company’s supply chain. “For example, a manufacturer may know how much electricity and fuel it uses, but it may not have information on the emissions generated by its suppliers. These emissions form part of Scope 3,” he explained. He said Scope 3 emissions could account for between 70% and 90% of a company’s total carbon footprint, making suppliers a critical part of the reporting process. However, he cited a report from Eco-Business research showing that only 11% of Malaysian public-listed companies disclosed Scope 3 emissions in the 2023 reporting cycle, compared with 39% across the Asia-Pacific region. “This means the pressure will not only be on large listed companies. Their suppliers, including small and medium enterprises (SMEs), will also increasingly need to provide reliable information on their carbon emissions,” he said. Acabo added that many companies still collect ESG information manually, with data scattered across different spreadsheets, websites and subsidiaries, making it difficult to verify its accuracy. “The real shift required is towards continuous, digitalised carbon accounting rather than an annual reporting exercise,” he said. He urged companies and SMEs to begin collecting relevant data now, so the information can be properly checked and verified before the new requirements take effect.

Cypark Resources Bhd has secured approval from the Sustainable Energy Development Authority (Seda) to expand its waste-to-energy (WTE) plant in Port Dickson. The approval, granted to its wholly owned subsidiary Cypark Smart Technology Sdn Bhd under the 2026 Feed-in Tariff (FiT) programme, covers a total installed capacity of 44.73MW and a net export capacity of 29.99MW. The project, under the biomass category, involves the company’s Solid Waste Modular Advanced Recovery and Treatment WTE (SMART WTE) Plant at Ladang Tanah Merah, Port Dickson. Cypark said the approval marks an important step towards the implementation of Phase 2 of the WTE plant. The development comes as Malaysia continues to expand its renewable energy capacity under the FiT programme. Economy Minister Akmal Nasrullah Mohd Nasir recently said 42 renewable energy projects had been approved under the latest FiT bidding round, covering biomass, biogas and small hydropower. The projects are expected to attract RM4.3 billion in investments and add 331MW of combined generation capacity. Malaysia aims to increase renewable energy’s share of its installed power generation capacity to 70% by 2050. Cypark shares closed 0.5 sen, or 0.71%, higher at 71 sen on Tuesday, giving the company a market value of RM584.21 million.

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and the Labuan Financial Services Authority (LFSA) have imposed a total RM10 million compound on UBB Investment Bank Ltd for breaches of anti-money laundering and customer due diligence requirements. UBB Investment Bank, a Labuan-licensed investment bank under UBB Amanah Group, was found to have committed several compliance failures during a joint on-site examination by BNM and LFSA in August 2024. According to BNM, the examination uncovered material non-compliances, including delays in submitting suspicious transaction reports (STRs) and failures to properly conduct customer due diligence. The bank failed to promptly file STRs for 53 suspicious transactions carried out between 2023 and 2024, breaching Section 14(1)(b) of the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001 (AMLA). A separate LFSA investigation found that the bank had also failed to properly identify and verify a customer’s identity during the onboarding process in 2023. The breach, under Section 98(2) of the Labuan Financial Services and Securities Act 2010 (LFSSA), affected the bank’s ability to assess and detect potential links to illicit overseas activities. The initial compounds were not paid within the required period, leading BNM and LFSA to begin prosecution proceedings against the bank for offences under AMLA and LFSSA. UBB Investment Bank later submitted written representations to the Attorney General’s Chambers seeking reinstatement of the compounds. With the written consent of the public prosecutor, BNM and LFSA imposed a RM9 million compound for the AMLA offences and RM1 million for the LFSSA offence on March 13, 2026. The bank subsequently paid the full RM10 million on June 11, 2026, BNM said. Following the enforcement action, BNM and LFSA reminded financial institutions and other reporting institutions to strengthen their internal controls and ensure full compliance with AMLA and related reporting requirements. BNM warned that reporting institutions could be exploited by criminals through negligence or deliberate involvement, and that failures to meet their obligations could result in enforcement action, including prosecution.

Rubicon Carbon, a company backed by TPG Inc.’s Rise Climate fund, will help finance carbon credit projects in Indonesia as the country pushes to expand supply and forge trading agreements with other nations. Rubicon Carbon and the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries of the Republic of Indonesia (KKP) signed a Letter of Intent to advance strategic collaboration on blue carbon development in Indonesia. Indonesia’s government has established a co-investment partnership with Rubicon Carbon that will pool public and private capital for blue carbon deals through a dedicated vehicle, Marine Affairs and Fisheries Minister Sakti Wahyu Trenggono said in a statement to Bloomberg News. “Indonesia is committed to unlocking the full potential of its blue carbon economy while ensuring that coastal communities remain at the centre of its development,” Trenggono said. Blue carbon projects generally involve the capture of carbon dioxide by coastal ecosystems such as mangroves and salt marshes. Under the arrangement, Indonesia’s government will provide support through land access, permitting, and help engaging local communities. No financial terms were disclosed, and a Rubicon Carbon spokesperson declined to discuss specifics of the co-investment deal. Trenggono added that the partnership’s initial phase — expected to become Indonesia’s largest blue carbon mangrove restoration effort — will span as much as 70,000 hectares (172,974 acres) along Java’s northern coast, with room to grow if the pilot phase proves successful. President Prabowo Subianto has previously outlined a goal of generating billions of dollars in revenue from carbon credits and has moved to revive the sector through various policy measures. Indonesia was once among Asia’s top suppliers of voluntary carbon credits before it restricted exports in 2022, when the prior administration reassessed how domestic offsets fit into the country’s own climate targets. Rubicon Carbon, led by former Bank of America Corp. executive Tom Montag, was founded to capitalize on an expected surge in carbon markets driven by intensifying climate concerns. While proponents view the market as essential to achieving global net-zero goals, it has lost momentum in recent years following a series of scandals and companies pulling back on emissions commitments. “Indonesia has an extraordinary opportunity to become a global leader in blue carbon,” Montag said in a LinkedIn post on Rubicon Carbon’s account last month.