Australia this year has been aggressively building up its impact-investing infrastructure, an effort championed by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Now a group of students behind the Impact Investment Hub are making it easier to find impact investing opportunities.
The team has built a Current Deals Library, which provides snapshots of open investments in the country (it also has a Past-Deals Map.) Turnbull’s government administration released a discussion paper in January that outlined ways the government could foster Australia’s impact investing growth, including directly funding investments and co-funding them with state and local governments.
Deals are getting done. State governments have backed several social-impact bonds this year, tackling homelessness, family services and other issues.
The National Australia Bank rolled out a gender equality bond, and insurer QBE introduced an initiative that enables policyholders to invest a portion of their premiums in social causes.
The Australian impact investing market is estimated to reach A$32 billion ($24 billion) in the next five years.
