During the first experiments with SIBs, singular actors were most active to further SIBs in Finland (Pennanen 2020). Finnish municipalities are generally interested in participating in SIB projects, but according to the Kuntaliitto, their capacity to do so varies notably, mainly due to their size. The matter is further complicated by the Finnish municipal governance, which is currently balancing its rather inflexible administrative legacy with the new opportunities and challenges posed by the SIB model. Nevertheless, some new networks have already been created representing new principles, which form a basis for setting up SIBs. These new principles rely on tools such as customer-oriented service logic in creating and organising services, service procurement based on results, and partner-based, multiform service production (Kyösti and Airaksinen 2020).

Due to lack of data, identifying and locating citizens to engage with the model is at times difficult, and the launching phase of SIBs has taken more time than anticipated. The amount of work related to launching and operating a SIB project, and especially regarding data protection issues, surprised some municipalities. Fitting public and private sectors together has also posed some problems, and, in one instance, the public employment services were not always aware of their tasks. For these reasons, practical, hands-on assistance is needed, especially at the beginning (Manninen 2020; Kyösti and Airaksinen 2021; Kiuttu 2020; Ylönen 2022). 

Professional investors agree that the current SIB model is rather heavy and inflexible. A model based on loans, like in Sweden, would help alleviate this problem, but that would require more established practices. In the ideal case, the public sector could move from buying performances to buying results, and the public sector would gain more experience and know-how related to measuring social impact results,  which could make a loan-based model succeed in Finland (Hokkila and Riskienhallinnan 2019). Some fear that social impact investment has become a diluted buzzword in some sectors leading to “impact-washing.” Some researchers suspect that investors and public actors may end up at opposing sides over the matter, for example in a situation where they view related risks differently. Estimating the related risks in a reliable way is challenging as the time span of a social project may easily extend over 10 years. In this situation, investors fear to commit their capital to long projects in a case where it cannot be withdrawn. These insecurities often stem from the novelty of the instrument: there is no empirical data yet to compare to or to make reliable estimations of its effectiveness. Furthermore, the projects that have used SIBs in Finland have been relatively small and inefficient (Manninen 2020).

Some private investors believe that SIBs should develop towards social outcomes contracting. Currently, the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority does not allow selling SIB funds to small investors, so their potential in this field is not yet explored. However, there are some possibilities to invest in SIBs also as a non-professional investor (Nykänen 2022).  

Investors that emphasize social responsibility are more ready to take part in developing objects that they believe have disproportionately high risk, such as social impact funds. Investors with a more market-oriented emphasis prefer to practice impact investing in other ways. Incorporating all these differing emphases regarding profit-seeking into one model is complex. Nevertheless, impact investing is generally considered an interesting option by investors and a clear-cut way to generate both profit and social impact (Manninen 2020). 

Below are several examples of SIBs in Finland that provide insight into how they can be successful as well as some complications and barriers to enabling social impact. 

Successful results: Established in 2017, Koto-SIB invested EUR 14 million of private funds with the aim of tailoring integration education based on the concrete needs of working places, thus speeding up the path to employment for immigrants from several years to 6 months. Companies such as Fazer Amica and Valmet Automotive were among those recruiting refugees who were involved in the programme. At the time, the programme was the largest SIB initiative in Europe. The results have been considered successful because the state has saved an estimated EUR 10-15 million on integration services, and about 50% of immigrants who participated in the programme became employed. Although the profit for investors was modest (less than 10%), it was considered reasonable and in line with their expectations. Success of the programme was measured with two indicators: a decrease in reception of unemployment benefits and an increase in income tax accumulation (Aro 2020; Kiuttu 20.10. 2020). 

Complexities of indicators: Tyhy-SIB, a project aiming to promote occupational well-being, provides an example of difficulties in measuring success. Municipalities used the number of sick-leave days as an indicator for determining if the programme achieved its goals; however, the project produced mixed results.  Although the number of sick-leave days did not decrease as significantly as the target, employees that took part in the project were satisfied with the experiment overall. It was concluded that the measure of sick-leave days was not comprehensive enough to reflect the state of occupational well-being (Aro 2020). People who worked with this integration and employment-oriented SIB also indicated that only measuring success numerically and financially excludes relevant parts of the human experience of integration (Ylönen 2022).

Structural barriers in SIBs: In 2019, Children SIB was set up to target families with neurodivergent children who need extra support with delivery in five Finnish municipalities (Government Outcomes Lab 2022) Three years after the launch of the Children SIB programme (Lapset SIB), the City of Vantaa reported that the project was too complex and heavy for city officials to sustain. The City of Vantaa procured services from the Central Union for Child Welfare and SOS Children's Village, with investments from the private banking company FIM Varainhoito. The families involved were happy with the project, but, even with a small number of customers, running the project still required a lot of time from city officials thus creating an administrative burden. As a result, city authorities came to the conclusion that the knowledge base on which cost estimates had relied on had been imperfect (Aalto 2021).

Other cities have been generally pleased with the project. The City of Lohja commented that families who were involved were satisfied, and the project delivered on its expected results. One Lohja representative commented on the problems that had emerged in Vantaa, saying that, from their perspective, the results of the project were worthwhile, even if it required additional administrative work. Overall, deeper analysis of the project’s success is not yet possible, as many are still on-going or have just finished. The City of Hämeenlinna used the SIB model to organise team sports activities for boys in risk of alienation and received good results, some of which—such as the participants’ need for social services support—could also be evaluated quantitatively. Some cities recognised similar problems as Vantaa, like Kemiönsaari, where suitable families were either not found or not recognised (Kauneela-Finley 2021). 

These examples show how SIB projects in Finland have, at times, imposed heavy workloads on public actors, but have also yielded successful results, especially from the perspective of the participants in need. One remaining complication is how to evaluate programme success with the appropriate metrics and indicators.