Finance leaders at Hong Kong FinTech expo support tokenisation as a means to improving business efficiency

The finance industry should embrace tokenisation along with other new technologies that can help improve business efficiency, but such launches should be made in a controlled environment to manage risks effectively, according to industry leaders at FinTech Week.

“Technology and innovation is very much part of our lives and we should embrace it,” Laura Cha, chairman of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) said at the fintech expo on Thursday.

Technology can help improve operational efficiency and unlock new business opportunities, she said. But in order for technology to be applied and become mainstream, it must be in an environment that is “backed by certainty, stability and reliability”, Cha added.

“It is very important that we balance innovation with governance, and as a regulator we need to make sure that our platform, and our system is robust and resilient,” she said during the so-called fireside chat, which also included CEO of Standard Chartered Bill Winters.

Hong Kong’s Fintech week brought together some 300 speakers at a two-day conference. Organised by InvestHK, the Hong Kong government department that oversees foreign direct investments, it is set to attract more than 30,000 visitors, government officials, regulators and heads of major banks.

Tokenisation was a popular topic during the chat as the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) recently released two guidelines regarding risk management of tokenised assets, regulatory expectations and additional protection requirements for publicly offered funds. In its guidelines, the SFC said it had observed a growing interest in tokenising traditional financial instruments among banking institutions.