This was one of the hot topics being discussed at the second annual Pan-Asia Regulatory summit in Singapore. Thomson Reuters Governance, Risk and Compliance, in conjunction with the Institute of Banking & Finance and colleagues from across Thomson Reuters, hosted over 580 leading players in the governance, risk and compliance community from across the Asia region.
The summit included several high profile speakers and panellists from leading financial services institutions, law firms, government bodies and regulators and featured a keynote address from Ravi Menon, Managing Director, Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Sessions focused on issues specific to the region, such as structural changes and strategies of stock exchanges, the importance of an efficient Know Your Customer regime and local, regional and international compliance challenges. A major theme of the conference was Asia’s role in the wider regulatory environment. Against the backdrop of continuing economic worries in Europe and the US, Asia remains a region in growth and this strength could be a great asset to the global regulatory community.
So, was there a consensus on what Asia’s role could, or should, be? Here are some highlights from the debate:
- Jane Diplock, from Singapore Exchange Limited and former chairman of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), believes that Asia is already leading regulatory thinking worldwide, due to the large number of key Asian decision makers in IOSCO committees. She commented that “Asian regulators are standard makers, not standard takers.”
- However, Saline Wangtal of the Bank of Thailand pointed out that to take the lead in financial regulation worldwide, Asia would first have to lead the world economy and spearhead global finance – and the lack of infrastructure investment in Asia was creating a bottleneck to this happening.
- This view was supported by Dr Eddy Fong, chairman of the Hong Kong SFC who said that the way forward was for Asia to ‘actively participate’ instead of trying to lead global financial regulation.
- In one of the final panel events, Sharon Craggs, Head of Compliance for Standard Chartered ask “Where are the heroes?” She said that Asia needed strong leaders in compliance to prepare for the forthcoming change in regulations.
What are your views on this topic, should Asia be a leader, or an adopter of global regulatory change in financial services
