At HKU FinTech Research, you will find much of our global research on financial inclusion and sustainability, supported by the RGC Senior Research Fellow Scheme as well as the Theme-based Research Scheme (TRS) project on Financial Technology, Stability, and Inclusion. Our research, such as the Policy Framework on Developing a National FinTech Strategy, involves collaboration with global organizations like the Alliance for Financial Inclusion.
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Building Better Financial Systems
Top 10 law authors of full-text papers on SSRN with over 29,000 downloads in the last 12 months and 215,000 all time downloads.
New Publication at Boston University International Law Journal: Monetary Hegemony, Technological Evolution, and the International Monetary System by Ross Buckley, Anton Didenko, Dirk Zetzsche, and Douglas Arner
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00:03:40 Asia Braces for Trump’s Robust Extraterritorial Enforcement
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00:06:07 Appeasing Trump: Manufacturing Moves and Trade Challenges
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00:11:02 Trump's Sanctions Toolbox: Is There Always More to Target?
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00:12:32 The Dollar Debate: BRICs, Bilateral Trade, and Trump's Rhetoric
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00:15:34 Preparing Asia’s Financial Hubs for Sanctions and Compliance Challenges
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00:17:53 Rising Compliance Costs and Legal Risks in the Sanctions Era
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00:19:55 Crypto-Friendly Trump Administration and Implications for Asia
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00:26:04 Ben Hammond Reflects on His Career and Crypto's Legal Challenges
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00:31:23 How Lawyers Bridge Tech and Law in the Digital Age?
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00:37:56 Hong Kong’s Stablecoin Bill Aims to Strengthen Regulation and Build Confidence
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00:41:53 Hong Kong’s Deliberative Approach to Stablecoin Regulation: Strength or Quirk?
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00:45:51 Compliance Expectations as Hong Kong’s Stablecoin Bill Nears Law
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00:50:53 Digital Assets Driving Cross-Border Evolution in Legal Practice
Extraterritorial Enforcement of US Laws in Asia Under Trump in 2025 / Hong Kong’s New Stablecoin Bill
Ep #61 with Ben Hammond (Managing Partner, Ashurst in Hong Kong) and Ross Feingold (Head of Research, Caerus Consulting)
In the first part of our inaugural broadcast of 2025, we’ll be speaking with lawyer and analyst Ross Feingold on the extraterritorial enforcement of US laws and regulations in the Asia-Pacific region as President Donald Trump returns to the White House on January 20. We’ll follow that up with a chat with Hong Kong-based lawyer Ben Hammond on the city’s forthcoming Stablecoin law.
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Ross Feingold is Head of Research at Caerus Consulting, a consultancy advising clients on risk management throughout the world. Admitted to practice law in the state of New York and Washington, DC, he was previously an in-house counsel at the Royal Bank of Scotland, Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan. Ross has lived in Asia for over twenty years – including in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei - and speaks fluent Mandarin.
He is also a lecturer and political analyst, as well as a director of the Paris-based Association of American Residents Overseas. And during his Hong Kong days, he was Asia chairman of Republicans Abroad.
In this episode of Regulatory Ramblings, Ross speaks with host Ajay Shamdasani about the extraterritorial enforcement of US laws and regulations under the Trump administration, including sanctions and trade tariffs – with an eye towards the Asia-Pacific region.
With Donald Trump set to return to power shortly, many in this region are jittery to see how he’ll handle his second time in the Oval Office. It’s an open question as to whether or not the Trump administration will increase legal and compliance costs for firms in Asia.
In the run up to last November’s election, the president-elect threatened tariffs of 60% on Chinese goods. He has since followed up by saying he would issue the first of “many” executive orders, including a 10% tariff on Chinese exports.
Worse still, President Trump threatened the BRICS nations should they make any move to either undermine of dump the US dollar for trade purposes.
Ross shares his views on what the region’s banking and financial institutions and multinational corporations should expect on the overseas enforcement front from the new administration, including sanctions related to Iran and Russia, but also the ongoing chip and technology war between the US and China.
Reflecting on his experience as in-house lawyer at some of the world’s most renowned banks, he also offers some suggestions for what general counsel and compliance officers in the region’s financial sector especially should be cognizant when preparing for what the next iteration of the Trump administration might dish out.
A big part of that is Trump’s threat to take action against the BRICS nations should they undermine the role of the US dollar in international trade. While the greenback isn’t going away anytime soon, it’s unclear to what degree Trump will carry forward with his admonition.
Ben Hammond is managing partner of law firm Ashurst in Hong Kong. In this episode, he articulates his views on the city’s new Stablecoin Bill, which was gazetted on December 6, 2024 and had its first reading before the territory’s Legislative Council on December 18.
Hongkongers are getting closer to experiencing the many applications of stablecoins, from domestic payments to cross-border trade settlements, as a bill covering the digital currency winds its way through the Legislative Council.
The Hong Kong government’s proposed Stablecoins Bill is coming closer to becoming law, as the city moves to balance financial stability and consumer protection while advancing its virtual assets agenda.
Stablecoins are digital assets issued by private entities that maintain a fixed value relative to a government-issued fiat currency or other reference rate. Generally, they have served as a bridge for transactions involving digital assets on blockchains, which cannot directly interact with fiat currencies.
Potential stablecoin uses could include automating incentives, rebates or loyalty points in digital wallets, like the Octopus programme, by using the programmability of stablecoins, or the ability to input rules and data in the blockchain.
Additionally, stablecoins can provide access to new investment avenues like tokenised funds – which use the blockchain for sales and redemptions – where assets under management are expected to climb to about US$600 billion in seven years from US$2 billion at the end of this year, according to a report from Aptos Labs, Boston Consulting Group and Invesco.
Ben is also a partner in Ashurst’s financial services regulatory group, where he leads its non-contentious regulatory practice in the territory. He advises clients on a broad range of transactional and non-transactional regulatory areas.
With his extensive expertise in digital economy matters, Ben has advised clients across a broad range of regulatory areas. Most notably, in February 2023, he advised Goldman Sachs on the use of its tokenisation platform, GS DAP™, for the issuance of an HK$800 million tokenised green bond for the Hong Kong government – it was the first tokenised green bond issued by a government globally.
In February 2024, Ben led a team supporting HSBC as the platform provider to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority – the city’s banking regulator and de facto central bank – on the world’s first multi-currency “digitally native” bond offering.
Ben discusses his professional background and how he first became involved with digital assets. He delineates what to expect from the Special Administrative Region’s new stablecoin bill, why is it important, how it will move the industry forwards and why it took so long?
He also shares what the bill will mean from a regulatory perspective for legal, compliance and risk staff at institutions dealing in such instruments, as well as what value he believes lawyers add in such technology-oriented matters when most of them are not technically trained.
Regulatory Ramblings podcasts is brought to you by The University of Hong Kong - Reg/Tech Lab, HKU-SCF Fintech Academy, Asia Global Institute, and HKU-edX Professional Certificate in Fintech, with support from the HKU Faculty of Law.
Useful links in this episode:
You might also be interested in:
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Must have book by Ross Buckley, Douglas Arner & Dirk Zetzsche - FinTech: Finance, Technology & Regulation
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Building Better Financial Systems: FinTech Sustainability - Research
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HKU-SCF Fintech Academy - website
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Asia Global Institute - website
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Most sought after Fintech course on edX - Introduction to Fintech
Regulatory Ramblings Podcasts List
Regulatory Ramblings Podcast
Welcome to Regulatory Ramblings, a new podcast from a team at The University of Hong Kong on the intersection of all things pertaining to finance, technology, law and regulation. Hosted by the HKU Reg/Tech Lab, HKU-Standard Chartered FinTech Academy and the HKU-edX Professional Certificate in FinTech, join us as we hear from luminaries across multiple fields and professions as they share their candid thoughts in a stress-free environment - rather than the soundbites one typically hears from the mainstream press.
Regulatory Ramblings is a forum for those that appreciate long-form conversation. While it is something that may be regarded as lost art of an older time, it is nonetheless sorely needed in an age when glibness and flippancy pass for analysis in conventional journalism.
Having said that, we are grateful to be able to avail ourselves of modern technological resources to bring you chats with people you are probably not going to hear from elsewhere.
Ajay Shamdasani is a veteran writer, editor and researcher based in Hong Kong. He holds an AB in history and government from Ripon College, JD and MIPCT degrees from the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce Law School, and an LLM in financial regulation from the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Chicago-Kent College of Law.
His 15-year long career as a financial and legal journalist began as deputy editor of A Plus magazine – the journal of the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants. From there, he assumed the helm of Macau Business magazine as its editor-in-chief, and later, joined Asialaw magazine as its deputy editor. More recently, he spent close to seven years as a senior correspondent with Thomson Reuters’ subscription-based trade-wire service Regulatory Intelligence/Compliance Complete (previously called Complinet) in Hong Kong. While there, he covered regulatory developments in that city, as well as Singapore, India and South Korea.
