This is not to say that the board should actually formulate these policies itself. That can be left to management. But the policies should certainly be approved by the board. As to whether we are placing too much burden on the non-executive directors, it should be recognized that being a director of a bank does involve heavy responsibilities. Moreover, the criminal sanctions in the Banking Ordinance apply to all directors, whether they are executive or non-executive. We acknowledge that it may not be an easy task to find non-executive directors with the right skills and degree of independence. We have therefore reconsidered our original recommendations on the number of independent directors to some extent, particularly in relation to restricted licence banks and deposittaking companies, and we are prepared to give institutions which do not already comply more time to do so if necessary. Finally, on the complaint that we are perhaps being too intrusive, I would point to our statutory responsibilities under the Banking Ordinance to ensure that institutions operate with integrity, prudence and competence and that individual directors are fit and proper. Concern about corporate governance falls squarely within these responsibilities. However, let me stress that this is not an area where we would want to take a narrow legalistic position. We are anxious to work closely with the banking industry to arrive at a mutually acceptable approach to corporate governance which is appropriate to the particular circumstances of Hong Kong.
This commitment has been made, for example, in public statements from Governor Andrew Bailey here here and here and Sarah John, the Bank’s Chief Cashier, here  , from myself  . 5. The NPA is a multi-year project which will allow for real-time payments, be able to handle increasing payment volumes. It will include the rules and standards that make up various payment types, allowing the market to create new products and services as well as allowing for the development of new overlay services. 6. Open Banking’s joint regulatory oversight committee consists of the FCA, PSR, CMA and HM Treasury. 7. See for example early stage use-cases of DLT for supply chain finance reported in UCL’s Centre for Blockchain Technologies report ‘DLT in the Supply Chain  ’. 8. As set out in Money creation in the modern economy | Bank of England the majority of money in the modern economy is created by commercial banks making loans. 9. The umbrella term ‘stablecoin’ has been used to describe a range of instruments with quite different characteristics. In particular, they may be backed by a range of financial assets, commodities or unbacked cryptoassets (which in some cases are supported by algorithmic protocols). The robustness of those backing assets and the wider safeguards for guaranteeing stability of value vary significantly across the products labelled as stablecoins. 10. See for example the Libra White Paper and related Diem technical papers 11. As set out in the Regulatory Initiatives Grid  . . 12.