Oct 4, 2024
The 16th Richmond Finance Summit at Beau-Rivage Palace, Lausanne
On 2-3 of October 2024, PLL Legal's partner Dr. Pavel Kulikov delivered presentations on both days of the 16th Richmond Finance Summit discussing various issues within the main theme of "Regulatory Environment, Innovation and Technoligies in Financial Market Development".
As part of a constructive Q&A session with key stakeholders in the financial industry, the participants discussed the role of new technologies in financial market development and the constantly evolving regulatory framework for digital assets. Dr. Kulikov was pleased to emphisize to the audience the role of soft law in this regulatory paradigm citing an updated CMTA's Digital Assets AML Standards - a guidance for financial intermediaries wishing to enter into business relationships with issuers of ledger-based securities, investors in digital assets or other types of clients whose business involves a material exposure to digital assets and DLT (The Standards can be downloaded here: https://lnkd.in/e7GnV3Gg).
Further discussion was held on the role of perception of risks in the development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), with a particular focus on the case of CBDC in China - the most advanced CBDC concept worldwide. The participants expressed great interest in this case, which was discussed as part of Dr.Kulikov's proposition on voluntarily aceepted and involuntarily accepted risks in the financial sector. Dr. Kulikov has emphisized that as part of the experiment with the CBDC in China, some salaries were paid to government employees in CBDC – the digital RMB. Currently, the market value of the digital RMB is already close to USD 910 billion and is expected to grow.
Last, but not least, the participants of the Forum have discussed the theory of embedded supervision as a promising concept of two ledgers (financial and non-financial) being able to instantly transfer transaction information to a worldwide chair of regulators (as theorized, however seems unrealistic at this stage), effectuating necessary prudential and supervisory oversight.
The participants from the leading financial institutions, pension funds and family offices have also showed genuine interest in exloring the thesis that Tokenised Deposits, as a move forward in cross-border settlements, in practice, would not be able to change its "socially useless innovation" status on the banking market for retail clients.
