The Highs and Lows of Creating the World’s First Social Stock Exchange

Friday, October 18, 2019

By Durreen Shahnaz

The world is coming around to social stock exchanges (SSEs).

In just the past few months, Scotland, Jamaica, and now India have thrown their hat in the ring to launch their own platforms, all with the hope of solving one of the greatest challenges to social capital markets: the need to connect capital to socially-minded organisations at scale.

In 2009, when I launched the world’s first SSE, the Impact Investment Exchange (IIX), in Singapore, I did so with the vision that it would become a beacon for impact investing—the symbol of a perfect financial system, where everyone could participate and have a voice.

The experience was a humbling one because it soon became clear that building inclusive markets would require much more than a platform. As I look back upon IIX’s journey, here are the top three things I learned.

Source: Quartz India (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Finance, Investing
Tags
impact investing