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RMI Hosts the Twelfth Annual Risk Management Conference
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On 26 July 2018, RMI hosted the twelfth instalment of its Annual Risk Management Conference at the Conrad Centennial Singapore. This year, the flagship annual risk management conference focused on current topics such as FinTech, bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies among other policy initiatives, regulatory changes, and industry developments. In addition to this, the conference also featured presentations on recent scientific developments, analytical techniques, and empirical findings in the field of risk management. More than 150 delegates from the industry, academia, and regulation were in attendance at the conference. RMI’s Director and Class of ’62 Professor of Mathematics, Prof. Steven Kou, kick-started the conference proceedings with his brief welcome remarks for the audience and speakers. The one-day conference featured two plenary talks, a talk on FinTech, two panel discussions, and six scientific paper presentations and their discussions. The day’s events began with the first plenary talk by Prof. Rod Garratt, Maxwell C. and Mary Pellish Chair, Professor of Economics, University of California Santa Barbara. Prof. Garratt talked about “Cash, Cryptocurrencies, and Digital Payments.” During his talk, he examined the special role new forms of privately or central-bank issued cryptocurrencies could play in the fast evolving world of money and payments. “Central banks will, at some point, need to respond to the disappearance of cash,” noted Prof. Garratt in his concluding remarks.
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His talk was followed by two presentations on some recent FinTech research RMI has conducted. Prof. Kou began his talk titled “FinTech: From Stable Coins to Robo-Advising” to discuss how to “design stable coins” and then Prof. Min Dai, Deputy Director at RMI and Director of Centre for Quantitative Finance (CQF) gave the audience an in-depth insight into “A Dynamic Mean-Variance Approach with Applications to Robo-Advising.” Post a short coffee break the conference proceedings continued into the first panel discussion for the day on “Financial Risk and Complexity of Blockchain.” The panel chaired by Prof. David Lee Kuo Chuen, Professor of FinTech and Blockchain at the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), featured various subject experts. The panellists were, Mr. Roy Lai, Founder at Sentinel Chain, Dr. Lo Swee Won, Lecturer, School of Business at SUSS, Dr. Lou Luu, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Kyber Network, Dr. Ernie Teo, Chief Technology Officer at JEDTrade, and Dr. Dennis Wu, Director, Department of Fundamental Theories at the GOSS Institute of Research Management Limited. The panel mulled over the fundamental value of blockchain and why it is a complex financial instrument. They also discussed how being inclusive in technology and finance can reduce financial risk, token design can reduce complexity, and future of decentralized blockchain. Last but the not the least, the panel focused on decentralized exchanges, volatility risks, and cybersecurity.
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Next on the agenda was the second plenary talk of the day on “Asset Prices and No-Dividend Stocks” by Prof. Suleyman Basak, Professor of Finance and Co-Chair of the Finance Department at London School of Business. His talk was based on his research which incorporates stocks that pay no dividends into an otherwise standard, parsimonious dynamic asset pricing framework. This was followed by the second panel of the day co-organized by RMI and International Association of Credit Portfolio Managers (IACPM), chaired by Ms. Marcia Banks, Deputy Director at IACPM. The panel, focused on “Assessing Emerging Risks in the New Environment – Risk Management Priorities,” featured Mr. Vincent Choo, Head of Group Risk Management at OCBC, Mr. Winston Hu, Chief Risk Officer and Deputy Country Head at Bank of China Singapore, Mr. Sameer Kumar, Partner at McKinsey & Company Singapore, and Dr. Jochen Schmittmann, Head of International Monetary Fund (IMF) Singapore Representative Office. Together the panel raised and debated topics including assessing geopolitical and developmental risks, evolving regulation and impact, balancing multiple, competing priorities across the firm, technology and financial services and their risks and opportunities, and future vision for financial services and risk management. The conference concluded with the break-out of two simultaneous tracks of scientific paper presentations and discussions by a group of researchers from both Singapore and overseas universities. Track A featured three papers on peer-to-peer equity financing, bitcoin transaction fees and option-for-guarantee swap. Whereas three more papers presented in Track B discussed automated detection of financial risk factors, high-frequency trading and blockchain settlement, and crowd wisdom and prediction markets. Launched in 2007, the Conference has grown to a regional platform that brings together policymakers, industry leaders, regulators, and internationally renowned academics to enhance their risk management techniques, explore the latest investment strategies and manage the fundamental regulatory changes in the financial sector.
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