HKU Introduction to FinTech MOOC: Looking Back Looking Forward: Covid-19 Implications by Professor Douglas Arner Arner (Kerry Holdings Professor in Law at the University of Hong Kong) In the May episode of Looking Back, Looking Forward, Professor Douglas Arner talks about the implications of COVID-19 for the future of the global economy and the global financial system. In his view, the longer the COVID-19 crisis lasts, the more likely the focus will be on long-term structural change, in place of short-term solutions. In this context, the spotlight is placed on the themes of 'technology, sustainability and globalisation versus fragmentation' through the guise of digital finance. To learn more, please join Introduction to FinTech on edX platform: https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-to-fintech

In this first episode of season three’s “Looking Back Looking Forward”, Professor Douglas Arner discusses the big issues relating to finance, technology and regulation for the new year. Topics expecting to make headway include asset pricing, potential financial crises, inflation, geopolitical issues and COVID-19. Crypto and digital assets, still causing concern by regulatory bodies, will continue to seek normalisation. Professor Arner also foresees central bank digital currencies and the Metaverse to rise among the topics for financial technology’s advancement in 2022.

In this episode of Looking Back Looking Forward, Professor Douglas Arner discusses data and its integration in the financial sector. In one of the world’s most digitised industries, datafication is at the core of finance. Professor Arner also shares on data governance’s influence on countries’ jurisdictions, including the challenges it may apply on financial services and economies. These topics, and more, are further examined in the newly published article “Financial Data Governance: The Datafication of Finance, the Rise of Open Banking and the End of the Data Centralization Paradigm (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4040604)” by Professor Arner, Giuliano Castellano and Eriks Selga. #data #finance #governance

In this episode of Looking Back Looking Forward, Professor Arner discusses the implications of weaponising finance, particularly in the case of the Russian-Ukrainian War. The digital infrastructure of finance, which connects countries to one another, is now being held amongst the developing crises in Ukraine. How can companies or individuals excluded from the international payment system combat such actions? Will a new monetary instrument be able to dominate existing major currencies? These questions and more are presented in the challenge digitisation is facing in the wake of the Russian-Ukraine War.

In this episode of Looking Back Looking Forward, Professor Douglas Arner underlines major sustainability crises and the potential finance, in particular digital finance, has to adapt to such global events. Could the digitisation of financial services be the foundation to protect economies and societies from such volatilities? Or will the standardisation of ethics prove to be the most critical factor? Watch to find out how finance can have certainty in uncertain times.

In this episode of Looking Back Looking Forward, Professor Douglas Arner discusses the risks imposed upon digital assets and the impacts on financial services and markets. Algorithmic stablecoins, maintaining stability in value between digital tokens and the US dollar, have encountered volatile development at the expense of its investors. This requires regulatory measures to be put in place for enabling administrative backing on such stablecoins, which Professor Arner highlights several options available for ensuring investor security and market protection.

In this episode of Looking Back Looking Forward, Professor Douglas Arner discusses digital identification and its implementation in countries like India and China as a means of entry into both public and private sectors. The COVID-19 Pandemic accelerated the use of digital identification systems to be integrated with interoperable electronic payments, and while these mechanisms provide biometrics on an individual level, they can also be applied to business and corporations. A recently published paper by @bisbribiz , "Corporate digital identity: no silver bullet, but a silver lining (authored by Professor Arner alongside David Leung, Bénédicte Nolens and Jon Frost), reviews possibilities in applying digital identification to companies in an effort for promoting market efficiency, financial inclusion and economic growth. Read the article here: https://www.bis.org/publ/bppdf/bispap126.htm

In this episode of Looking Back Looking Forward, Professor Douglas Arner discusses the future of the international monetary system, from its beginning when precious metals dominated as the major monetary instrument; to the US dollar’s linkage to gold; to the development of fiat currencies which serve as the prevailing international monetary instrument in today’s markets. Professor Arner also explains how geopolitical conflicts, such as the Russian-Ukrainian War, not only result in the weaponisation of the international monetary and payment system but also highlight the impacts of digital finance, causing countries to enhance their own domestic infrastructures.