It is also not unreasonable to expect that traditional business lines between financial services, general commerce or telecoms will increasingly be blurred – and activities may concentrate in the biggest institutions with superior competitive advantages including in the areas of talent, customer base, and customer data. The FAANGs and BATs of this world – the technology giants – come to mind. These may also have implications for financial stability. Indeed, the next systemically important institution could be a BigTech with roots in e-commerce, and therefore, whether such entities require some form of oversight by financial regulators in future. 33 With the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) and various forms of data analytics (DA), another area of focus will be around the governance of their use. The MAS recently released a guide that we co-created with some industry partners on a set of principles for Fairness, Ethics, Accountability and Transparency (or FEAT) in the use of “AIDA”. Whether and how the increasing use of machine-learning systems (both supervised and unsupervised), algorithms and data-driven insights can affect behaviours and decision-making in financial institutions will be a rich area for research and attention. Regulators generally like the idea of deploying smart systems that can do a better job in risk detection or risk management. But what about for business decisions or say, personnel decisions? Whether AI-driven systems will perpetuate bias and discrimination is also ripe for more extensive studies.

The IMF has highlighted that global banks and financial institutions have yet to recognize more than half of their total estimated write-downs of $ trillion. So far, growth has been supported by the massive monetary and fiscal stimulus. Indeed, studies of past crises suggest that economic recoveries in the aftermath of financial crises tended to be protracted. Many analysts therefore expect global growth to be slower in the coming years. 5. Against this backdrop, what should be the growth strategies of emerging economies, and what is the role of financial institutions, especially Islamic financial institutions? 6. Even with slower global growth, emerging Asian and Middle Eastern economies are expected to grow at higher rates than advanced economies. There are many positives working in their favour – abundant natural resources and monetary reserves; young and dynamic populations, growing consumer demand, large infrastructural programmes underway in some areas like water, energy, transport, education and healthcare. Generally, balance sheets of corporates and households are in better shape than it was in earlier years. 7. With the growing importance of emerging economies, we will see changes in the patterns of trade and development. There will be stronger “south-south” trade. The old pattern of “flying geese” development in Asian newly-industrialised economies, where developed economies bring in investment and technologies, will give way to a more variegated pattern, where companies in the emerging markets will invest in other markets. We already see many corporates from emerging markets developing disruptive technologies and business models that address market needs in very competitive ways.