More than 180 leaders from financial institutions, fintech entrepreneurs and regulators gathered last week in Hong Kong to discuss the latest disruption to the financial sector and to see how it has changed since the global financial crisis of 2008, and how much it will change in the next ten years.

The one-day event addressed topics such as a ten-year outlook of Asia’s financial institutions; how the financial sector has changed in the last decade; whether regulators and traditional companies will keep pace with technological evolution; how AI and blockchain technologies are altering the banking ecosystem and driving further change, and most importantly; what the major banks have learned that could help them avoid future crises.

Henry Ma, vice president and chief information officer of WeBank said,

“In the new economy, connectivity is the key to success. By applying technologies like AI,blockchain and cloud you can connect with this new type of customer.”

Amit Shah, chief fintech officer of Yes Bank said,

“There’s been a lot of hype around fintech. A lot of it has settled down. Even the largest fintech companies in India have not achieved the scale to be an imminent threat to banks”.

Jing Ulrich, managing director and vice-chairman, Asia-Pacific of JPMorgan Chase talked about the trade war between China and America, suggesting short-term upheavals to financial markets and impact to Chinese exports, but believes the People’s Bank of China and the Chinese government have plenty of measures to stabilise the economy, one of which being the lowering of Renminbi deposit reserve ratio.

On the topic of the automation and machine learning, Peng T. Ong, managing partner of Monk’s Hills Ventures provided some insight, and commented,

“what tech does, is it destroys jobs. What do governments have to do to keep food on people’s tables? That’s the bigger question.”

Key takeaways:

• The financial sector has learned the lessons from the last crisis, but is not equipped to predict the next one
• It is difficult and impracticable to use foreign yardsticks to measure China’s economy and predict downturn.
• Banks must cultivate a more tech-focused culture to compete with core technology firms in talent retention

The event’s speakers included:

• Amir Amiruddin, co-founder, Investree
• Amit Shah, chief fintech officer, Yes Bank
• Antoine Blondeau, co-founder and chief executive, Sentient
• Brian Behlendorf, executive director, Hyperledger Project
• Christine Ip, Greater China chief executive, United Overseas Bank
• Cory Johnson, chief market strategist, Ripple
• Douglas Arner, Kerry holdings professor in law, University of Hong Kong
• Haichen Wang, chief financial officer, Youxin Financial
• Henry Ma, vice-president and chief information officer, WeBank
• Jing Ulrich, managing director and vice chairman, Asia-Pacific, JPMorgan Chase
• Jing Zhou, president, PINTEC Group
• Louis Kuijs, Head of Asia economics, Oxford Economics
• Maggie Qiu, head of sanctions, Greater China and North Asia, Standard Chartered Bank
• Mark Smith, founder and chief executive, Symbiont
• Peng T. Ong, managing partner, Monk’s Hill Ventures
• Peter Kim, Investment strategist and managing director, Mirae Asset
• Sridhar Sidhu, head, information security services and regulatory compliance risk management services, Wells Fargo
• Steven Cochrane, Chief Asia-Pacific economist, Moody’s Analytics
• Susan Zhou, Chief operating officer and board member, QLC Chain
• Thiri Thant Mon, managing partner, Sandanila Investments
• Werner Steinmueller, chief executive, Asia-Pacific, member of management board, Deutsche Bank

Sponsors of The Economist Events’ Finance Disrupted Asia 2018 include Youxin Financial as gold sponsor, Blackstar & Co.as silver sponsor and INSEAD as academic sponsor.