Finance Regulation Technology Institute of International Finance

In this episode of FRT, Ronit Ghose, Global Head of the Future of Finance think tank at Citi Global Insights, discusses the future of money, tokens, and games. Each year, Ronit’s team publishes the “Citi GPS: Global Perspectives and Solutions” report exploring trends in digital money. This year’s report, subtitled “Blockchain’s Next Billion Users and Trillions in Value” explores why innovation in money is different than innovation in other assets.

In this episode of FRT, Fabian Astic, Managing Director and Global Head of Decentralized Finance and Digital Assets at Moody’s Investors Service, asks critical questions like “Why do we need digital currencies?” and “What is their value?” Fabian analyzes the use cases for various types of digital currency, from cyptoassets to stablecoins to deposit tokens to CBDCs, and closes by sharing his views on the future of decentralized finance.

In this episode of FRT, Tom Mutton, Director of Fintech at the Bank of England, discusses the Bank’s joint consultative report with HM Treasury, titled “The digital pound: a new form of money for households and businesses?” Tom additionally comments on the future of financial infrastructure, addressing privacy, interoperability, public vs. private solutions, and the future of decentralized technologies.

In this episode of FRT, Yue Hong Zhang of Boston Consulting Group (Hong Kong) and Daniel Wu of Amazon Web Services (APAC) discuss emerging technologies and the future of financial infrastructure, including the development of cloud, artificial intelligence, digital assets, blockchain technology, and the policy environment shaping the adoption of these technologies in the Asia Pacific region.

This episode of FRT reflects on the role of cloud computing in the future of finance, and the recent US Treasury Report on the topic, with Howard Boville, Head of IBM Cloud Platform & Technology Lifecycle Services. Cloud computing is an essential tool for the digital transformation of financial services, but its rise has been accompanied by a global policy dialogue on the role of cloud computing and the appropriate frameworks to manage risk and oversight.

The US official sector had been comparatively quiet on the subject; however, a recent report from the US Treasury has put forward a comprehensive review. The report, The Financial Services Sector’s Adoption of Cloud Services, takes stock of financial service applications moving to the cloud and the benefits it can deliver as well as exploring the risks and potential policy and regulatory responses. Various regulators and global standard setters have considered these issues for some time, and a variety of perspectives have emerged, particularly in the EU and some emerging markets. Now, the home jurisdiction for the major cloud service providers has publicly outlined their views.

Howard discusses trends in digital transformation, some of the challenges financial firms are solving in their cloud migration, and how firms are addressing the risks outlined in the Treasury report. Configuration of cloud services by the financial institution is one example of a place where more talent, expertise and communication between FIs, regulators/supervisors, and the cloud service providers could help advance understanding and support for critical applications migrating to the cloud. Addressing cyber risk is another focal point. Before the episode concludes we also look ahead at developments in AI and quantum computing as related developments for the future of finance.

Episode 132 of FRT provides an update on digital transformation in the public sector with Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) held their Innovation Summit 21-22 March where they convened Central Banks and representatives of the financial services industry to explore how technology is helping central banks and financial markets transform their operations. The program included views from Governors and BIS leaders on their strategic objectives as well as a review of progress and findings from the various BIS Innovation Hub projects around the world.  On the side of the proceedings, FRT caught up with Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, to discuss the current approach to innovation in the public sector, hot spots such as digital assets and AI, and the role of the public and private sectors for innovation in a rapidly digitizing society.