Cambridge Regulatory Innovation Hub

Professor Kamal Munir: The Regulator Knowledge Exchange launched by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance and supported by the Gates Foundation and the UK’s FCDO is a great example of how the University can contribute to the development of communities around the world and facilitate meaningful engagement for public good.

Now I’m pleased and honoured to introduce our keynote speaker today, Her Majesty Queen Maxima of the Netherlands.

Her Majesty Queen Maxima of the Netherlands: As the UN Secretary General’s Special Advocate for over the last decade, I’ve witnessed the remarkable progress that digital financial services and digital public infrastructure can bring.

Many financial innovations cut across several regulators’ mandates, and collaboration is needed to make regulation effective.

Finally, while improving the regulatory environment is crucial, for digital finance to thrive, we also need supportive policies and infrastructure.

So, I am delighted to see the CCAF Regulatory Knowledge Exchange taking a lead in facilitating this work. Working with over 120 jurisdictions, and more than 230 organizations, it has significant potential to have impact. So let us share this knowledge, and working alongside international institutions, go the extra mile. Together, we have a unique opportunity to build an inclusive digital financial sector, with the real power to improve people’s lives.

The Rt Hon Andrew Mitchel MP: It is of course vitally important to have a strong and supportive regulatory environment as a backdrop to these efforts. Innovative regulation is the very best foundation for green inclusive growth supporting technological advances, reducing the risk and cost of capital and protecting people and businesses. And this is why the UK has supported the development of the Regulator Knowledge Exchange, which has demonstrated its potential during pilots, attracting more than 1000 users from over 120 countries.

Kosta Peric: From our work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation we know that regulators are critical stakeholders in achieving financial inclusion and gender equality in access to financial services worldwide. The Regulator Knowledge Exchange is a trusted collective intelligence collaboration platform for regulators whose primary objective is to scale their collective capability in innovation, quality and efficiency. RKE is about trust – trust built through a peer community of regulators, for regulators and led by regulators.

Kaitlin Asrow: I feel that regulation creates more resilient innovation and helps protect consumers to really take advantage of opportunities. But one thing that we have a responsibility to do is to harmonise and to make that effort to work together to reduce duplication and conflict in what we expect of the entities.

Ravi Bhalla: I would really encourage people to navigate, to explore, to use the platform and help us improve the knowledge zone over time, so we can collectively maximise the value for you with rich content and features. It really is designed to be the go-to-source for the international regulator community.

Temitope Akin-Fadeyi: The RKE platform actually facilitates the concept of peer-learning. And this is important because, through a platform like the RKE – and I have been one of the pilot users – and I have had the benefit of working with other regulators across regions, virtually, some we’ve never met before, some we’ve met before, but the point is that the platform brings everybody together. We have this diversity of ideas and diversity of expertise that we learn and share across different jurisdictions.

Kelvin Lester Lee: Going to a platform, going to a meeting place, like the RKE is a good way to gain insights and practical insights on how to establish and move forward with your policies and regulatory direction.

The Philippines SEC is probably the best use case for something like this – we learned from the RKE, we implemented based on what we learned from that Ask-Me-Anything session. So bottom-line, sharing the knowledge, learning from each other, from fellow regulators and fellow experts within the RKE makes a big difference.

Kanwaljit Singh: I’m really excited to bring the power of collaboration and connections to the regulatory community through the RKE, where the hope is that the RKE fosters a culture of collaboration which allows regulators to be more aggressive on allowing innovations to help people’s lives