Thur 05 December 2019
By Jayne He
The Co-director of UNSW Law’s China International Business and Economic Law (CIBEL) Centre Associate Professor Heng Wang was invited to serve as a panellist at the DC Fintech Week at Capitol Hill, Washington DC on 22 October 2019.
The DC Fintech Week is Washington’s unique policy forum for FinTech, and it ran for four days from 21 to 24 October this year. Hosted by the Institute of International Economic Law at Georgetown Law, the Institute for Financial Market (IFM) and CQ Roll Call, the forum covered a wide range of topics related to FinTech by keynotes and panels that featured with experts and thought leaders from regulatory institutes, leading businesses and law firms. The keynote speakers include Chairmen of Securities and Exchange Commission and US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Associate Professor Wang sat at the panel titled “Arbitrage or Adaptation? Domestic Rules, International Markets”. He talked about the latest development and future of central bank digital currency (CDBC) and related issues that range from Libra to the possible international cooperation and the challenges. The panel was moderated by Michelle Bond (Global Head of Government Relations, Ripple). Other panellists include Peter Kerstens (advisor at European Commission), Michael Liftik (Partner, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP), and Michael Mosier (Chief Technical Counsel, Chainalysis Inc.).
During the trip to the States in October, Associate Professor Heng Wang also visited the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where he had several meetings with a number of colleagues from the IMF Legal Department, Monetary & Capital Markets Department, and Research Department. In particular, he shared his research on CBDC with IMF colleagues.
Associate Professor Wang also briefly met professors and students at Harvard Law School and the Fairbank Center of Harvard University during his transit in Boston and shared his research on China and international economic law with them.
Associate Professor Wang has led two research projects on CBDC in collaboration with colleagues from UNSW, Tsinghua University and elsewhere. These include a grant under the UNSW-Tsinghua University Research Collaboration Grant Scheme. He also spoke on CBDC at a CIBEL workshop last year, where experts from Australian regulators and leading institutions were giving talks.
More of Associate Professor Wang’s research may be found at ResearchGate, SSRN, Twitter @HengWANG_law, and LinkedIn.