high aspiration and readiness to embrace frontier technologies will allow the fintech firms from mainland china to adapt and expand to international markets quicker and safer ; whereas on the northbound, hong kong can 1 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches facilitate fintech firms abroad to enter into the mainland china, the world's top consumer market for fintech. as an example, webank, an established mainland digital bank, set up its technology company headquarters in hong kong in july this year, further paving the way to commercialise its technology solutions for the global markets. we are pleased to have mr henry ma from webank, who will share his experience in the upcoming panel discussion. given such a pivotal role as a fintech catalyst, the value of hong kong is substantial. the next and more important question we have is : how do we better achieve this role? how do hong kong better achieve its role? in nature, catalysts accelerate growth and lower " activation barriers ", i. e. the energy required to initiate growth. in the fintech ecosystem, this is the role of hong kong – fostering fintech growth while addressing key adoption barriers. so, what exactly are the key barriers facing the industry? according to a recent cross - sectoral adoption study conducted under the hkma's " all banks go fintech " initiative, the top three fintech adoption barriers are : uncertainty about regulatory compliance when adopting novel technologies ; unavailability of data accessible in a secure manner ; and unawareness of the plethora of fintech solutions. to cross these barriers, the hkma has indeed endeavoured to roll out a wide range of facilitative measures. barrier 1 : uncertainty about regulatory compliance when adopting novel technologies gba fintech pilot trial facility with the aim of addressing the regulatory uncertainties about cross - border technology adoption, the gba fintech pilot trial facility was jointly launched in 2022 by the people's bank of china ( pboc ) and the hkma ( and further linked up with the respective pilot trial facility of the monetary authority of macao in november 2023 ) to facilitate pilot trials of cross - border fintech initiatives, allowing testing to be conducted concurrently in hong kong and mainland gba cities. the facility has enabled banks and fintech solution providers to obtain early supervisory feedback and user opinions, expedite the launch of fintech products, and ultimately reduce development costs. we are encouraged to see successful production roll - out of cross

the discussions today. another important issue, for example, is how home price movements are shared between the borrower and lender. home price risk is already partially borne by lenders and other mortgage investors, since a fall in home prices increases mortgage defaults and see agarwal, driscoll and laibson, 2013, “ optimal mortgage refinancing : a closed - form solution ”, journal of money, credit and banking, vol. 45, no. 4, pp. 591 – 622. according to data from the home mortgage disclosure act, there were 31. 8 million refinancings of first - lien single - family mortgages over 2008 – 2013, with an average ( median ) loan amount of $ 212, 000 ( $ 174, 000 ). for evidence on the importance of capacity constraints for time - varying margins in mortgage pricing, see fuster, goodman, lucca, madar, molloy and willen, 2012, the rising gap between primary and secondary mortgage rates, federal reserve bank of new york economic policy review, 19 ( 2 ), pp. 17 – 39. this is documented for instance in another paper presented yesterday, by andersen, campbell, meisner, nielsen and ramadorai ( 2015 ), “ inattention and inertia in household finance : evidence from the danish mortgage market ”. for evidence that lenders are less willing to originate frms if mortgage securitization markets are illiquid or frozen, see fuster and vickery ( 2015 ), “ securitization and the fixed - rate mortgage ”, review of financial studies, 28 ( 1 ), pp. 176 - 211. research presented in yesterday ’ s academic sessions finds that a bank ’ s access to external bond finance influences the composition of mortgages it originates : see foa, gambacorta, guiso and mistrulli ( 2015 ), the supply side of mortgage finance. one proposal for such innovation that would have increased pass - through during the crisis is the “ automatic stabilizer mortgage ” of eberly and krishnamurthy, 2014 ; see http : / / www. newyorkfed. org / research / conference / 2015 / mortgage _ design / eberly _ janice _ 052015. pdf. bis central bankers ’ speeches foreclosures, and associated credit losses. but a number of proposals have argued that mortgage balances should be explicitly indexed to movements in