Description

NUS Law’s Centre for Banking & Finance Law (CBFL) co-organised the 2nd Annual Symposium on EUAsia Relations in Financial Services from 27 to 29 May 2015 together with the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Asia Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (ASIFMA), Afore Consulting, the University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and City University of Hong Kong. The symposium was held at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority Auditorium in Hong Kong. It provided a unique opportunity for global, European and Asian policy makers, regulators, academics and industry representatives to meet and discuss important issues impacting the effective functioning of EU Asian trade, investment and capital markets.

The discussions covered a wide range of legal and policy issues, including new models in financing large infrastructure projects, the comparative advantages of bank financing and capital markets based financing, measures to overcome fragmentation in the Asian markets, the global economic implications of the internationalisation of the RMB, and how asset encumbrance may affect risk mitigation techniques.

Keynote speeches were delivered by, amongst others, Director General of International and European Relations at the European Central Bank and the Prime Minister of Malta. Speakers engaged in panel discussions included senior policy makers and regulators from the European Commission, the European Central Bank, Germany’s Federal Ministry of Finance, the UK Treasury, Bank of Italy, Bank of Japan, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong (SFC), the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the Malta Financial Services Authority; representatives from key industry players such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), Euroclear, SWIFT, Deutsche Bank, Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investors Service, Thomson Reuters; as well as academics from leading universities in Singapore and Hong Kong. About 150 participants from regulators, government agencies, banks, financial services institutions and law firms attended the symposium.

CBFL Director Associate Professor Dora Neo spoke in the panel on infrastructure financing. CBFL Executive Committee Member Assistant Professor Umakanth Varottil and CBFL Adjunct Researchers Ramon Pacheco Pardo and Sheng Jin participated in the symposium.

CBFL also co-organised the 1st Annual Symposium on EU-Asia Relations in Financial Services in Singapore in 2014.