Friday, November 12, 2021
October also featured Sibos, a virtual conference focused on digital acceleration and ethical investing and NY FinTech Week, a collaborative event designed for the fintech startup community. Momentum continued in early November. Following is a sampling of recent virtual, hybrid and on-site gatherings.
Co-hosted by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and InvestHK, Hong Kong FinTech Week 2021 was held both on-site and virtually to provide a collaborative platform for fintechs to share innovations, experience and regulatory and compliance trends. During the three-day event, the HKMA disclosed two new initiatives: a government green bond program for issuing tokenized bonds and the AMLab series designed to enable banks and data experts to explore digital footprint use to protect against money laundering and other forms of financial fraud.
Among trending topics was an in-depth discussion on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), a potential game changer that would facilitate real-time cross-border commerce. The panel was moderated by Bénédicte Nolens, head of BIS Innovation Hub Centre Hong Kong at Bank for International Settlements. Panelists included Colin Pou, executive director (financial infrastructure) for Hong Kong Monetary Authority; Mu Changchun, director-general of the Digital Currency Institute at People's Bank of China; Shu-Pui Li, advisor for The Governor Office at Central Bank of U.A.E.; and Vachira Arromdee, deputy governor, corporate development, at Bank of Thailand.
Panelists noted that multiple CBDCs deployed across Hong Kong, Thailand, China and the United Arab Emirates would eliminate multi-day delays and increase transaction speed from several days to real time. The session can be viewed on demand at www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7yPl0uHKKY.
Celerant hosted its inaugural CumulusClientCon21, a conference showcasing the latest in retail technology and digital commerce developed to help retailers stay competitive in 2022. Held virtually over two days, the event included training sessions, workshops and keynote presentations on mobile shopping apps, digital commerce, loyalty programs. Celerant partners and sponsors participated, including Avalara, Worldpay/GoCart, Shift4 Payments, ShipEngine, Fortis, Management One and Star Micronics.
Michele Salerno, director of marketing at Celerant, thanked sponsors for helping retailers stay agile and competitive. "Celerant implemented many new features and third-party integrations this past year—all of which were introduced at the conference," she said. "After hosting a client conference for our Stratus Enterprise dealers for over 15 years, it only seemed natural to bring that same benefit to our Cumulus retailers. We thank everyone involved for making this year's virtual conference a success and look forward to continuing again next year." A video recap of the conference is available at: www.celerant.com/cumulus-conference.
Global cybersecurity leaders and more than 2,500 viewers attended the Arkose Labs second annual virtual Bankrupting Fraud Summit to share information on emerging threats and technologies in cybersecurity and fraud prevention and mitigation. Speakers included executives from organizations including EA, Robinhood, Facebook, Roblox, Visa, Expedia, PayPal and the United Nations, event planners stated.
Held virtually and sponsored by Feedzai, PayPal, Outseer and Socure, the conference featured 25 sessions and 50 speakers from across three continents. The event opened with Geoff White, a leading cybersecurity investigative journalist, best-selling author and host of The Lazarus Heist podcast. White shared how North Korea became a cybercrime superpower and provided insights on nation-state-level cybercrime.
Vanita Pandey, chief marketing officer at Arkose Labs, observed that staying ahead of cybercriminals requires diverse perspectives from across the industry. "Tackling cybercrime effectively and in the long-term requires diverse perspectives from across the industry," Pandey said. "This Summit was a prime opportunity for our community to gather and deepen the understanding of emerging trends that can harm digital business."
In a post-session wrap-up, conference organizers indicated that Arkose Labs will host the popular conference again next year, possibly in person. This year's sessions are available on demand at www.bankruptingfraud.com. 
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