A speech by Greg Medcraft, Chairman, Australian Securities and Investments Commission at the Bund Summit on Fintech: Technology-Driven Global Financial Transformation (Shanghai, People’s Republic of China), 9 July 2017
Good morning ladies and gentlemen.
I would like to thank the Shanghai Institute of Finance for inviting me to speak today. I am delighted to be here among so many eminent participants, and I look forward to sharing some of my thoughts about technology-driven global financial transformation. In particular, I want to give you a global regulatory perspective on the challenges we face in this time of rapid technological change.
In my role as the Chairman of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, and previously, as the Chair of the IOSCO Board, I have seen how effective regulators can be when we work together to solve problems. Global challenges often require global solutions. As market regulators collectively, our fundamental objective is to allow markets to fund the economy, and in turn economic growth. We do this by:
- promoting investor trust and confidence
- ensuring fair, orderly and transparent markets, and
- mitigating financial system risk.
The risk is that if we allow too much fragmentation in the system – for example, as a result of differences in national approaches, or along technology lines – we will not be able to realise the benefits to our fundamental objective of the new technologies that are currently being developed.
So today, I want to cover two main topics:
- First, I will outline why I believe global regulatory cooperation and coordination is essential to realise the benefits of the technological revolution and transformation.
- Second, I will talk about the work that regulators are doing to prepare for the digital age and improve international cooperation through IOSCO.