Financial regulations are necessary given the complexity of financial transactions that are taking place here in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. They are not liked by anybody but regulations should be viewed as brakes or traffic lights. Regulations by themselves are not meaningful, unless the financial community makes a concerted effort to observe what is good for the wider financial system. Regulators should be flexible to relax regulations, where possible, and allow markets to grow. For example, very recently, the government decided to allow foreigners to invest in Sri Lanka Treasury Bonds through TIERA accounts. That is a further relaxation of capital controls. If financial markets use this opportunity in an objective manner, we can expect further relaxations. Regulators and policy makers should find a middle way to understand the way innovative products work. My message to this august audience is that under the present regulatory regime, Sri Lanka’s financial system is resilient and it is capable of absorbing shocks from within or outside. We should be happy to note that like the Sri Lankan economy, the financial system has also displayed its resilience under trying circumstances in the recent past. We hope it will continue to be so in the future. From a regulatory point of view, we will continue to support markets and financial intermediaries to maintain the required robustness of the financial system. Thank y ou. BIS Review 6/2007  3
Tharman Shanmugaratnam: Enterprise innovation - improving lives in Singapore  and  technological  Speech by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the FinTech Awards, Singapore, 17 November 2016. * * * Mr Wee Ee Cheong, Chairman, ABS and CEO, UOB Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, 1 Thank you for joining us here at our inaugural FinTech Awards prize presentation ceremony. 2 Let me begin by thanking the participating teams, as well as the international cast of judges who helped evaluate the entries, for their time and inspiring work. 3 This evening, we are honouring winners from two competitions organised as part of the inaugural Singapore FinTech Festival: the Global FinTech Hackcelerator and the FinTech Awards. The Global FinTech Hackcelerator attracted a total of 655 submissions from more than 50 countries. They produced solutions to address some of the 100 problem statements that the financial sector had put out. The FinTech Awards recognises innovative FinTech solutions that have actually been implemented by financial sector players and technology companies. We received 210 entries, running the gamut from cyber security to payments. 4 We celebrate the winning entries this evening. But equally, we are celebrating the spirit of innovation that each of the participants in these competitions demonstrated. They represent the passion to make things better, to create value for firms in a way that gives customers value, and ultimately, to find innovative ways to improve everyday life. That is the FinTech spirit.