On 8 October, Malaysian development finance institutions, private sector banks, and ASEAN regulators met in Kuala Lumpur to learn how behavioral insights can improve financial health.  
 
Hosted by Bank Negara Malaysia in collaboration with AFI, the workshop helped members identify the behavioral drivers behind financial decision-making and apply those insights to policy design and implementation.  
 
Across ASEAN, financial services are becoming “faster, easier, and more digital”, said Bank Negara Malaysia Assistant Governor, Ali Suhaimi. But this doesn’t necessarily guarantee people’s financial health. Behavioral barriers such as present bias, eroded trust, and cognitive overload play an equally important role. 
 
“Our job is not only to help people enter the financial system. It is also to help them navigate it well once they are inside.” 
 
“Behavioral insights is still a relatively new topic and an emerging area,” said AFI’s Director, Strategy, Member Engagement and Evaluation, Aban Haq. “So we have an opportunity to build the evidence base and identify approaches that can potentially be adapted across different countries and regions.” 
 
“We are asking a very practical question. Can we use our understanding of how people actually behave to design better policies, products and processes, and ultimately achieve better financial health outcomes?” 
 
In a combination of theory and a practical exercise, the workshop welcomed over 100 participants, including speakers from Nudge Malaysia, Employees Provident Fund (Malaysia), Institute for Capital Market Research (ICMR) Malaysia, GoTyme Bank Philippines, the Superintendency of Banks of the Dominican Republic, and the Central Bank of Armenia. Regulators attended from Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, the Philippines and Thailand.