Improving the financial health of all Malaysians

Improving financial literacy is a key component of AmMetLife’s mission to serve the communities in which we operate. Since 2017, we have supported Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) ongoing Karnival Kewangan (Financial Carnival), a campaign to educate the public on the importance of life insurance for Malaysia’s poorest communities. In 2018, we have focused on some of the country’s neediest communities in Kedah, Sabah and Sarawak.

AmMetLife’s focus on financial inclusion is shared by our employees. In 2018, over 440 employees participated in “Take Action,’ a partnership between the MetLife Foundation and Kiva, a global organization supporting low-income entrepreneurs around the world. For each participating employee, the MetLife Foundation made a US$25 contribution to Kiva in support of a budding entrepreneur, helping them embark on their dreams of starting a business. All in all, employee participation led to over RM45,000 in contributions to Kiva.

The MetLife Foundation plays a leading role for AmMetLife. In 2018, the Foundation awarded a $3 million grant to the UNCDF (UN Capital Development Fund) for an innovation-focused program called i3 (Innovate, Implement and Impact), focusing on improving the financial health of low to moderate-income families in Malaysia, China, Bangladesh and Vietnam. UNCDF, in collaboration with BNM and MDEC, will set up a program hub in Malaysia to incubate scalable ideas for budding entrepreneurs, conduct workshops on product design, business plan pitching, sustainable business models and data analytics. i3 will also offer boot camps, design sprints, help identify impactful partners, and provide seed funding bringing innovation into action for more than 200,000 low to moderate-income individuals in Malaysia.