The new  8  BIS central bankers’ speeches  international rules are to be phased in gradually from 2013 to 2019. That is a long time to wait. The authorities must cooperate across national borders on regulations, the timing of their implementation and enforcement. The dividing line between our own and other countries’ banks is becoming increasingly blurred. Our close relationship with our neighbours also applies to the financial sector. Leading the way together with a coordinated introduction of new and stricter rules could be of mutual benefit. The Ministry of Finance has overriding responsibility for financial stability. However, it can be demanding to restrain debt growth in times of strong optimism and confidence in the future. Our experience of well defined mandates and a clear delegation of responsibility in the field of monetary policy has been positive. The legal authority to implement macroprudential measures to safeguard financial stability should be delegated, just as the government has delegated responsibility for interest rate setting. Norges Bank should be assigned formal responsibility to provide concrete advice on macroprudential measures for the financial sector. The Bank has a highly competent staff with a broad background and a daily presence in financial markets. Norges Bank is therefore prepared to provide advice on the measures that should be implemented. Finanstilsynet (Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway) should be responsible for implementation. The central bank and Finanstilsynet are both housed in this building – but communication between the two institutions should take place through public channels.

New concepts in various facial or voice recognition techniques could be demonstrated by the developers in the Fintech Innovation Hub to gather feedback from potential users and to receive regulatory guidance from supervisors at an early stage. This should help shorten the time-to-market of useful industry-wide solutions. Second, I envisage that the Fintech Innovation Hub will also benefit the HKMA. In this place, we could explore with innovators options and possibilities of using new technologies, such as Big Data Analytics and other “regtech” initiatives, to achieve our objectives  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  more effectively without creating undue risks or burden for our internal systems or databases. Fintech Supervisory Sandbox 16. Meanwhile, there is also a quite commonly-held perception that the development of Fintech in the financial services sector in Hong Kong has been slow. I do not subscribe to this view, at least insofar as the banking sector is concerned. In the past few months, banks and stored value facility operators have already launched new payment facilities built on smart phones and Near Field Communication technology. These facilities have the potential of altering fundamentally the way consumers make payments. Many banks have also reported to the HKMA their intention to roll out very soon new technology with a view to providing more secure and efficient services to customers. I mentioned earlier biometrics authentication technology involving voiceprints and fingerprints. This is indeed something that many banks are planning to roll out.