Welcome Remarks
Diwakar Gupta
Diwakar Gupta is ADB's vice-president for private sector operations and public-private partnerships. Under ADB's long-term Strategy 2030 framework, ADB is significantly scaling up its support in these areas of activities. In his prior commission, Mr. Gupta was managing director and chief financial officer of the State Bank of India, setting strategies alongside other members of the State Bank’s Central Management Committee.
Welcome Remarks and Moderator
Phil Middleton
Philip Middleton is deputy chair at OMFIF. He became a non-executive director at OMFIF on 1 January 2018, having been deputy chair of the OMFIF Advisory Board for the previous four years. He is a director of Rifle House Capital Ltd and a commissioner at the Guernsey Financial Services Commission, the regulatory body for the finance sector in the Bailiwick of Guernsey. He was formerly a senior partner and head of central banking at professional services firm EY, where he specialized in strategy consulting and services to governments and other public institutions across Europe, the Middle East, India, and Africa.
Panelists
Robert Bell
Robert Bell guides regulatory policy formation and national regulatory operations, and speaks as an expert on digital financial security, international payments exchange, and financial inclusion at world forums including the G20, United Nations, Commonwealth Heads of Government, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, ADB, and other global financial institutions.
Carmelle Cadet
Carmelle Cadet leads the global business strategy and development efforts for the digital assets segment of IBM Blockchain. She is responsible for the development of use cases and business models for commercial and central banks’ digital currencies. She also manages strategic partnerships driving the adoption of blockchain digital currencies.
Adam Cotter
Adam Cotter is OMFIF’s head of Asia and chief representative of the Asia office in Singapore. In this capacity he directs and manages the execution of OMFIF’s coverage and representation for the region. Prior to taking on this new role, he was responsible for managing the relationships with the official sector in Asia and the Pacific, and for coordinating OMFIF meetings worldwide. He has a specialist knowledge in development economics, and economic reforms and soft power projection of the People's Republic of China.
Chuchi G. Fonacier
Chuchi Fonacier is deputy governor for financial supervision at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, responsible for the regulation of banks and other BSP- supervised financial institutions. She also currently serves as the chair of the Executives’ Meeting of East Asia-Pacific Central Banks Working Group on Banking Supervision.
Robert Guild
Mr. Guild, an expert on infrastructure investment for social and economic development, is responsible for ADB-wide technical collaboration, innovation, and knowledge management for sector groups in transport, energy, urban, water, education, health, and finance; and coordination with thematic groups for agriculture and rural development, gender, social development, environment, regional cooperation, and climate change and disaster risk management. He has advised governments, the private sector, and multilateral institutions in over two dozen countries in Asia, the Pacific, and Latin America on public investments, public-private partnerships, and national and regional development plans.
Shirin Hamid
Shirin Hamid has more than 20 years of executive leadership in digital transformation and innovative use of information management and technologies for complex, large multinational and multi-dimensional organizations at an international scale. As CIO of ADB, Ms. Hamid is responsible for the organization's digital strategies and transformation, and its IT infrastructure, operations, and talents spanning across more than 30 countries. Prior to ADB, Ms. Hamid was the chief technology officer of the United Nations Development Program in New York from 2005 to 2016. Before that, she was the general manager of information systems/information technology in Singapore's Keppel Offshore and Marine and concurrently, of its parent company, Keppel Corporation. Ms. Hamid holds a master's degree in business systems analysis and design from City University, UK and a bachelor's degree in computer science from Coventry University, UK. In 2014, she was honored as a Top 100 Premier Global IT Leader by ComputerWorld.
Esala Masitabua
Seminar Summary
In collaboration with IBM and ADB's Office of Information Systems and Technology Digital Sandbox Program, OMFIF held a seminar as part of the official program of events at ADB’s annual meetings—the second year it has done so.
Technological innovations can facilitate the transition towards more sustainable global economic growth, though the impact of such advancements on markets and consumers remains a growing concern for central banks and regulators. The discussions of the seminar focused on the potential benefits and risks of digital currencies and their financial market implications. Attendees also addressed the role played by the private sector, and how emerging technologies may aid central bank efforts to bolster financial inclusion and improve preemptive supervisory activities.
