LBLF: What are the Implications of Weaponising Finance?
In this episode of season three’s Looking Back Looking Forward, Professor Douglas Arner discusses the implications of weaponising finance, particularly in the case of the Russian-Ukraine 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.
Watch it here.
HKU FinTech Newsletter - March 2022
New Article: Governing FinTech 4.0: BigTech,
Platform Finance, and Sustainable Development
Written by Douglas Arner (University of Hong Kong), Ross Buckley (University of New South Wales), Kuzi Charamba (University of Hong Kong), Artem Sergeev (University of Hong Kong), and Dirk Zetzsche (University of Luxembourg)
Over the past 150 years, finance has evolved into one of the world’s most globalized, digitized, and regulated industries. Digitalization has transformed finance, but also enabled new entrants over the past decade in the form of technology companies, especially FinTechs and BigTechs. As a highly digitalized industry, incumbents and new entrants alike are increasingly pursuing similar approaches and models, focusing on the economies of scope and scale typical of finance and the network effects typical of data.
Predictably, this has resulted in the emergence of large digital finance platforms. The authors argue that the combination of digitalization, new entrants (especially BigTechs), and the evolution of dominant digital finance platforms brings both massive benefits and an increasing range of risks to growth and broader sustainable development..
Read more here.
Huy Nguyen Trieu awarded “Outstanding Financial
Innovation Visionary” at Asian Digital Finance Forum
The ‘Asian Digital Finance Forum and Awards’ was recently hosted by the Asian FinTech Academy (AFTA) in a hybrid format virtually and in-person in Colombo, Sri Lanka. At the session, CFTE’s Co-founder Huy Nguyen Trieu was recognised for his exemplary work in the Fintech space by being awarded the title of ‘Outstanding Financial Innovation Visionary’. Huy’s work is driven by the belief that in a world led by technology, we shouldn’t forget the importance of people, which is why he co-founded CFTE to help people improve their skills and find opportunities in the rapidly evolving Fintech world.
Read more here.
Future of Money
In Issue 89 of this series, which covers recent topical developments, Henri Arslanian shares some ideas on:
- CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) #NFT collections
- Their history and major milestones
- Their impact on the industry and what their future may look like
Read the post here.
New Paper: Australia’s Data-Sharing Regime:
Six Lessons for the World
Written by Ross Buckley and Natalia Jevglevskaja (University of New South Wales (UNSW)), and Scott Farrell (King & Wood Mallesons Sydney)
Open Banking is increasingly popular globally and is generally understood as the right of consumers to share their banking data with third parties of their choice so these can offer a better value for money service.
While the EU and UK pioneered the development of Open Banking, Australia has adopted it and applied the concept of consumer data portability far more broadly. Its Consumer Data Right (CDR) regime is unique in its intention to implement economy-wide data sharing across sectors. Although the legal frameworks in all three jurisdictions are in a state of flux, we analyse five lessons Europe can learn from Australia’s experience with its CDR regime to date and suggest a sixth lesson.
Read more here.
Tokenization of Everything and What it Means for Markets
(Recording available)
Market infrastructures and financial institutions have been increasingly looking at tokenisation as a way to boost efficiency in the issuance and trading of financial instruments. This panel will discuss some of the industry initiatives underway to tokenize traditional assets, what this means for markets, and how taxation and regulatory requirements can support these initiatives.
Brian Tang (HKU) chairs, with panelists: Oi Yee Choo (ADDX), Angelina Kwan (HashKey Group), and Alex Kech (Citi Ventures)
Watch the panel here.
New Blog: After Libra, the e-CNY and COVID-19:
the new world of money and payments
Facebook’s stable cryptocurrency, COVID-19, and China’s central bank digital currency, the e-CNY, have caused a reorientation of monetary and payment systems around the world.
Ross P. Buckley (UNSW), Douglas W. Arner (HKU), Dirk A. Zetzsche (University of Luxembourg), and Anton Didenko (UNSW) envisage three emerging design choices for these systems, reflected in centralised, decentralised and hybrid models. They predict that the advent of national monetary competition through major economies’ sovereign digital currencies will be one of the defining developments of the next decade.
Read more here.