Financial Inclusion, A Hong Kong Perspective

30 June 2020 via ZOOM

This seminar will examine the problem of banks’ de-risking practices inside Hong Kong’s Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regime. It will consider the relative merits of principle versus rule based financial regulation in the enhancement of financial services regulatory compliance, and the impact of a multitude of financial reform causes, namely the promotion of financial technology (FinTech) innovation, the facilitation of regulatory technology (RegTech) development and eventually, an increase in financial inclusion. As financial authorities are harnessing the power of FinTech to enable RegTech empowered supervision and oversight, the seminar is positioned to be a springboard for constructive discussions on financial inclusion for those groups most affected by the de-banking, including small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups in Hong Kong. Ultimately, the seminar will examine how financial market stability and integrity can be sustained through both a digital financial inclusion framework and a legal and regulatory framework that consists of AML/CFT safeguards and their variable approaches (e.g. the risk-based approach, the proportionality approach, and the costs and benefit balancing approach) to address the customer due diligence requirements, as well as financial consumer protection against digital financial and digital technology risks.

About the Speaker

Emily Lee (LLB, LLM, PhD) is Associate Professor and Deputy Director for the Asian Institute of International Financial Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests are in the fields of financial law, corporate insolvency law, cross-border insolvency law and comparative law (comparative financial law and comparative corporate insolvency law). This seminar forms part of the Public Policy Research Project (ID: 2017.A8.064.17C) which is funded by the Public Policy Research Funding Scheme from the Policy Innovation and Co-ordination Office of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The project consists of interdisciplinary research on law and technology, focusing especially on FinTech and RegTech and their intricacies in AML/CFT law and regulation compliance. Her research work has been published by leading peer-reviewed journals such as the American Journal of Comparative Law, Journal of Corporate Law Studies and Journal of Business Law.

Enquiries: Flora Leung at fkleung@hku.hk