ASIFMA and Afore Consulting are proud to co-host the 8th EU-Asia Financial Services Dialogue, taking place on Monday, 28 March 2022 from 8:00-12:00 (CEST/GMT+2) / 14:00-18:00 (GMT+8) and will take the form of a virtual event.

The Dialogue takes place annually around the EU-Asia-Pacific Forum on Financial Regulation organised by the European Commission and the APAC Regional Committee of IOSCO. It is an occasion to discuss the opportunities and challenges in the financial services sector around regulatory cooperation between the Europe and Asia.

This year, we will engage in a high-level dialogue across two core themes and invite industry experts and regulators from EU and Asia to dive deeper into a discussion covering:

Sustainable Finance: Can Asia and the EU demonstrate global leadership in developing consistent taxonomies?

Digital Assets: The impact of regulatory fragmentation – is there a path to global consistency?

Confirmed speakers include:

• Paulina Dejmek-Hack, Director for General Affairs at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Financial Services, Financial Stability and Capital Markets Union, European Commission
• Takashi Nagaoka, Chair of IOSCO Asia-Pacific Regional Committee, Deputy Commissioner for International Affairs, Financial Services Agency, Japan
• Maria Raffaella Assetta, Head of the International Affairs Unit, DG FISMA
• Khairul Ridzwan Abdul Kuddus, Deputy General Manager, International Affairs, Office of the Chairman, Securities Commission Malaysia (SEC)
• Julia Haake, MD Market Strategy and Outreach, Moody’s ESG Solutions
• Jaclyn Dove, Global Head of Sustainable Finance Strategic Initiatives, Standard Chartered Bank
• Benedicte Nolens, Head of BIS Innovation Hub, Bank for International Settlements
• Kin Ying Lee, CEO, Hong Kong Branch, Euroclear
• Jan Ceyssens, Head of the Digital Finance Unit DG FISMA
• Montserrat Farina, Global Digital Assets Policy Lead, JP Morgan Chase
• Ashley Alder, Chair, IOSCO Board, Chief Executive Officer, Securities and Futures Commission (SFC)
• Nickolas Reinhardt, Director, Afore Consulting
• Mark Austen, Chief Executive Officer, ASIFMA

We look forward to welcoming you to this important regulatory and policy event bringing together European and Asian policy makers and industry representatives.

Should you have any questions on the conference, please contact Nickolas Reinhardt (Nickolas.Reinhardt@aforeconsulting.eu) or Alexis Mine (Alexis.Mine@aforeconsulting.eu).

Please find here the full programme.

Afore Consulting and ASIFMA are proud to co-host the 7th EU-Asia Financial Services Dialogue, taking place on 12 March 2021 for half a day (8 AM-12.35 PM CET). This year this Dialogue will take the form of a virtual event.

The Dialogue takes place annually around the EU-Asia-Pacific Forum on Financial Regulation organised by the European Commission and the APAC Regional Committee of IOSCO. It is an occasion to discuss the opportunities and challenges in the financial services sector around regulatory cooperation between the Europe and Asia. We look forward to welcoming you to this important regulatory and policy event bringing together European and Asian policy makers and industry representatives.

For this year’s event, we are delighted to have with us the following speakers:

• E. Arkhom Termpittayapaisith, Minister of Finance, Thailand
• Ashley Alder, Chair, IOSCO Board
• Jean-Paul Servais, Vice-Chair, International Organisation of Securities Commissions, Chair of the Belgian Financial Markets Authority
• Sean Berrigan, Director General, DG FISMA, European Commission
  Steven Maijoor, European Securities and Markets Authority Chair
• Tokio Morita, Vice Minister for International Affairs, JFSA and Chair, IOSCO Asia Pacific Regional Committee
• Shen Bing, Director-General of the Department of International Affairs, China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC)
• Ho Hern Shin, Assistant Managing Director (Banking & Insurance), Monetary Authority of Singapore
• Mukhtar Hussein, Group General Manager, Head of Belt & Road Initiative and Business Corridors, Asia-Pacific, HSBC

Join us for keynote speeches and panel discussions on:

• COVID-19 recovery
• Sustainable finance
• Regulatory alignment and deference
• Financial Technology

We look forward to welcoming you online on 12 March 2021.

Please register here.

7th EU-Asia Financial Services Dialogue programme

Please feel free to contact Jean Plattard, Senior Consultant at Afore Consulting on Jean.Plattard@aforeconsulting.eu or Millie Hung, Head of Events at ASIFMA on mhung@asifma.org if you have any questions regarding this event.

In January 2020, members of the EU-Asia Financial Services Roundtable met with Constance Kann, Director for Institutional Relations at the European Central Bank for a discussion on sustainable finance and the EIB’s activities in Asia. An exchange then followed with H.E. Anh Quang Vu, Ambassador of Vietnam to the EU.

In December 2019, members of the EU-Asia Financial Services Roundtable met with Neena Gill, MEP, Member of the ECON Committee and Chair of the Delegation for Relations with Japan, Maria Spyraki, MEP, Member of the ITRE Committee and Vice-Chair of the Delegation for Relations with China, and Mauri Pekkarinen, MEP, Member of the ITRE Committee and member of the Delegation for Relations with Japan for a discussion on European and Asian challenges and opportunities in trade, sustainable finance, technology and financial services.

The 6^th EU-Asia Financial Services Dialogue took place on 10 October 2019 in Tokyo, bringing together over 150 representatives of the regulatory, supervisory and financial industry communities of the EU, Asia-Pacific and the United States.  The EU’s contribution to the Dialogue was of very high level, with the participation of Olivier Guersent, Director General of DG FISMA, Steven Maijoor, the Chair of ESMA, senior management of DG FISMA, and representatives of the EBA, ESMA and ECB, but also from Ashley Alder, Chair of IOSCO.

The Dialogue, co-organised by Afore Consulting and the Asia Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association (ASIFMA), followed the EU-APAC IOSCO regional forum and took place on the eve of the EU-Japan High-Level Dialogue on Financial Services.  Over dinner, we were delighted to have keynotes from Toshihide Endo, Commissioner of the Financial Services Agency of Japan, and Olivier Guersent.

Participants commended the work of the Japanese Presidency of the G20 for having effectively tackled market fragmentation, and the subsequent work undertaken by the FSB and IOSCO to achieve further consolidation. However, it was noted that inherent reasons for fragmentation will always exist, and the situation has evolved positively over the last few years.

Sustainable finance was equally high on the agenda, ahead of the launch by the Commission of the International Platform on sustainable finance. This was an opportunity for the Commission to explain the methodology in the development of a taxonomy of what constitutes a sustainable investment. Whilst many welcomed the EU’s initiative, it was also noted that such a taxonomy could be detrimental to meet the infrastructure financing needs of developing economies, notably in the APAC region.

In September 2019, members of the EU-Asia Financial Services Round Table met with Marco Chirullo, Deputy Head of the Far-East Unit at the European Commission’s DG Trade. A discussion then took place with H.E. Manasvi Srisodapol, Ambassador of Thailand to the European Union.

On 26 June 2019, Caroline Wellemans, Deputy-Head of Financial Technology and Sustainable Finance Unit, DG FISMA, addressed the members of the EU-Asia Financial Services Round Table  to discuss the international impact of the EU sustainable finance initiatives and to share their views on the recent sustainable finance developments in some Asian jurisdictions. A discussion then followed with Mr. Xia Xiang, Minister-Counsellor for Trade and Economics of the Chinese Mission to the EU.

On 19 June 2019, the EU-Asia Financial Services Round Table welcomed Mark Austen, CEO of ASIFMA, for the launch of ASIFMA’s paper on China’s Capital Markets. He was joined in his presentation by Philippe Pellé, Senior Expert, International Affairs Unit, DG FISMA.

In April 2019, members of the EU-Asia Financial Services Round Table met with H.E. Justin Brown, Ambassador of Australia to the European Union.

On 6 February 2019, members of the EU-Asia Financial Services Round Table will meet with Almoro Rubin de Cervin, Head of Unit, International Relations, at DG FISMA.

This will be followed by a meeting with H.E. Kazuo Kodama, Ambassador of Japan to the European Union, in the context of Japan’s chairmanship of the G20.

Afore Consulting and ASIFMA held the 5th Annual EU-Asia Financial Services Dialogue on 1 November 2018 in Singapore, which coincided with the Singaporean Presidency of ASEAN and the annual EU-Asia-Pacific Forum on Financial Regulation organised by the European Commission and Asia-Pacific Regional Committee of IOSCO.

This event brought together over 200 participants from Europe, Asia- Pacific and the United States to discuss and exchange views from different areas of the globe on FinTech and ICOs, third-country equivalence regimes and the supervisory approaches to conduct and prudential regulations. High on the agenda was the need to move forward after the implementation of the post-crisis FSB reforms, as well the geopolitical tensions between the US and China and their potential knock-on effects on the Asian region. The EU’s capacity to remain attractive was high on speakers’ agenda, as well as the tensions between innovation and privacy.

If you are interested in delegating a speaker for a future event or if you want to know more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact Nickolas Reinhardt, Director of Afore Consulting at Nickolas.Reinhardt@aforeconsulting.eu.

On 10 October 2018, the EU-Asia Financial Services Round Table hosted H.E. Hasnudin Hamzah, Ambassador of Malaysia to the EU for a luncheon in Brussels. This was an opportunity to discuss the current EU-Malaysian relationship, take stock on the new Malaysian Government’s priorities and exchange on the EU-ASEAN Summit of 18-19 October 2018.

On 29 August 2018, Members of the EU-Asia Financial Services Round Table met with the Cabinet of European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis to discuss some of the impacts of the EU legislation on Asian markets, notably on benchmarks, and the broader EU-Asia relationship in financial services.

On 16 May 2018, the EU-Asia Financial Services Round Table welcomed Filip Deraedt, Head of the Trade Relations with South and South East Asia Unit at the European Commission’s DG Trade for an update on the state of play of FTAs under discussion with key Asian jurisdictions.

Over lunch, Neena Gill, MEP, member of the European Parliament’s ECON Committee and Vice-Chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with India offered her thoughts on the EU-India relationship and the future UK-India relationship in the context of Brexit.

H.E. Yuri Thamrin, Ambassador of Indonesia to the EU, presented the priorities of his country in regards to trade, technology and shared his insights on the Indonesia-EU relationship.

On 20 February 2018, the EU-Asia Financial Services Round Table hosted Felicia Stanescu, Head of the financial services policy and international affairs unit at DG FISMA, for a discussion on the upcoming EU-APAC Regulatory Forum on Financial Regulation taking place on 31 October 2018 in Kuala Lumpur and topics which are of interest for both EU and Asian regulators.

Petr Jezek, MEP, member of the ECON Committee and Chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for relations with Japan, gave an update on the EU-Japan FTA and an overview of the EU-Japan relationship in financial services.

The EU-Asia Financial Services Round Table was then delighted to host H.E Kim Hyoung-zhin, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to the EU, for a luncheon. Ambassador Kim gave an update on the EU-Korea FTA and offered his perspective on the EU-Korea relationship.

The 4th Annual EU-Asia Financial Services Dialogue took place in Hong Kong on 30 November 2017, co-organised by Afore Consulting and ASIFMA and sponsored by many members of the EU-Asia Financial Services Roundtable. This year’s Dialogue took place in Hong Kong on the eve of the EU-Asia Pacific Forum on Financial Regulation, which brought together EU and Asian-Pacific regulators to discuss shared issues and exchange on commonalities in resolving them.

The EU-Asia Financial Services Dialogue focused on regulatory innovation triggered by FinTechs, the effects of EU legislation on third countries and the ways to recalibrate the global regulatory agenda. It had a lively discussion on the European, US and Asian approaches to some crosscutting issues such as market infrastructure, post trading but also data privacy and KYC rules.

The EU-Asia Financial Services Roundtable hosted a lunch with Ryozo Himino, Vice-Commissioner for International Relations at the Japanese Financial Services Authority and H.E. Kazuo Kodama, Ambassador of Japan to the EU. The luncheon discussion covered the work of the FSB, G-20 and Basel Committee as well as how Japan is following the Brexit discussions.

Felicia Stanescu, Head of the financial services policy and international affairs unit at DG FISMA presented the ESA’s review and role they would have in the equivalence-granting procedure. In the evening, a dinner took place with H.E. Jaya Ratnam, Ambassador of Singapore to the EU. This was a small dinner permitting members to have a lively discussion with the Ambassador who presented Singapore’s current priorities with the EU focused primarily around trade and economic issues. It was also an opportunity to better understand Singapore’s role in the G-20, third-country issues for EU undertakings and the work done by Singapore to promote innovation and FinTech hubs.

The EU-Asia Financial Services Roundtable welcomed Olivier Guersent, Director General at DG FISMA, to discuss the Commission’s current structured dialogues with key Asian jurisdictions and upcoming work on equivalence.

A dinner was hosted with the Hong-Kong Office Economic and Trade Office to the EU where we had the pleasure of guest speakers Alice Choï, Deputy Representative and responsible for financial markets and Paula Kant, Senior Investment Promotion Executive at InvestHK.