Norman T L Chan: HKMA Fintech Day Speech by Mr Norman T L Chan, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at HKMA Fintech Day, Hong Kong, 11 November 2016. * * * MY, George, Julia, Frank, Herman, Albert, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, 1. It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to this HKMA Fintech Day, which is part of the Fintech week. Today we have a great gathering with speakers and participants from diverse background of the financial and technology sectors, including banks, stored value facility (SVF) operators, fintech firms, fintech investors, regulators and many others. I am sure the discussions today both on and off the stage will be extremely interesting. 2. The event today is organized by the Fintech Facilitation Office (FFO) of the HKMA together with our three strategic partners: the Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI), Cyberport and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks (the Science Park). As you are aware, we set up the FFO in March this year with the mission to facilitate the development of fintech in Hong Kong. 3. In the last few months, the FFO has organized many activities to bring together users and solution providers of fintech, so as to build an ecosystem to promote the adoption of new technologies in the banking sector. The FFO will continue to develop this collaborative platform together with ASTRI, Cyberport and the Science Park.
Some legal issues have yet to be thoroughly examined, such as the application and enforceability of laws for the crossborder DLT models, mechanisms for handling liability and dispute resolution if there is no centralised party administrating the DLT platform, and compliance with personal data protection principles in relation to data sharing and perpetual storage. Also, traditional cybersecurity issues still apply to DLT, including denial of access attacks and other cyber attacks. 7. The next stage of ASTRI’s study will deliver more detailed findings from a number of the proof-of-concept trials, along with assessment on whether some of this work can be put into action. It will also address the regulatory implications of DLT, and the general control principles for DLT for the banking and payment industry. We plan to deliver the next set of results in the form of another white paper in the second half of 2017. 8. Third, as I announced in September, we are setting up the HKMA-ASTRI Fintech Innovation Hub. I am now pleased to say that, following intensive preparation, the Hub is ready for use as from today. The Hub is equipped with high-powered computing resources and supported by the experts at ASTRI to allow banks, payment service providers, fintech firms and the HKMA to brainstorm innovative ideas, try out and evaluate new fintech solutions in a safe and efficient manner. All in all, the Hub will cater for the big and small institutions alike in supporting their research and adoption of fintech. 9.