The Treasury Markets Summit 2012, jointly organised by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and the Treasury Markets Association (TMA), was held today (Friday) in Hong Kong.
In his keynote address to the Summit, Mr Norman Chan, Chief Executive of the HKMA, highlighted the power of the “3Cs” ‑ Competence, Control and Culture ‑ in building a successful and competitive world-class international financial centre (IFC). Mr Chan believed that the “3Cs”, Competence, Control and Culture, are the key elements of the soft power of Hong Kong’s financial market and that the race to become an IFC is in fact a “battle of soft power”.
Mr Chan highlighted particularly the importance of Culture. He contended that while it is essential to have professional competence and good control in the context of building a financial services sector that befits a world-class IFC, it is equally, if not more, important that financial institutions and their practitioners uphold the right values that protect and serve the interests of their customers. “An IFC also represents a brand, a quality that customers trust in terms of efficiency, reliability and integrity. It takes decades or even centuries to build a brand, but only days to destroy it if any of the qualities of competence, control or culture are eroded,” said Mr Chan.
To strengthen Hong Kong’s soft power, in particular its 3Cs, Mr Chan said that regulators, the financial industry and individual financial institutions should each do their own part and contribute together to the maintenance of Hong Kong’s status as a world-class IFC. For instance, in a bid to uphold competence and professionalism of private bankers and wealth managers, the HKMA is working with the Securities and Futures Commission and the industry to revamp and formalise the professional qualifications and training for private banking and wealth management practitioners, similar to what the TMA did on in establishing a professional qualifications and training framework for treasury markets practitioners in 2011. To promote the importance of control and governance of banks, the HKMA has also started to conducting face-to-face meetings with individuals nominated to be bank directors, and chief executives. and alternative chief executives. One of the purposes of these face-to-face meetings is to make clear to such persons the HKMA’s expectations of their roles and responsibilities.
During the Summit, speakers and participants also discussed the role of the treasury markets in the development of Hong Kong's offshore RMB business, the new trends in Hong Kong's asset management business, and professionalism and ethical standards of treasury-market practitioners.
Other speakers at the Summit include Mr Peter Pang, Deputy Chief Executive of the HKMA and Chairman of the TMA Executive Board; Mr Oliver Bolitho, Managing Director and Head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management Asia Pacific; Mrs Jamie Pfeifer, Secretary to the New York Foreign Exchange Committee, Federal Reserve Bank of New York; and Professor Kalok Chan, Associate Dean of Business and Management, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
The Summit was attended by over 300 participants, including representatives from regulatory authorities, treasury markets practitioners, and senior executives and professionals from banks and other financial institutions from different geographic locations.
Hong Kong Monetary Authority
Treasury Markets Association
12 October 2012
Mr Norman Chan, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, gives the keynote speech at the Treasury Markets Summit 2012 held in Hong Kong.
Mr Peter Pang, Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (third from left) shares views about how Hong Kong's treasury markets should support the development of the city as an offshore renminbi centre at a panel discussion at the summit. Panellists joining the discussion are Mr John Tan, Head, Global Markets, and Co-Head Wholesale Banking, Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) (first from left), Mr Clifford Tan, East Asian Head of Global Markets Research, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Limited (second from left), Mr Justin Chan, Deputy Head of Global Markets, Asia-Pacific, Head of Hong Kong Trading, HSBC (third from right), Mr Chordio Chan, General Manager, Head of Investment, Investment Management, Bank of China (Hong Kong) (second from right) and Mr Andrew Ng, Group Executive, Head of Treasury & Markets, DBS Bank (first from right).
