From 2005 to 2021 John Kiff was a Senior Financial Sector Expert at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Prior to that, he was at the Bank of Canada for 25 years, where he spent most of his time managing the funding and investment of the government’s foreign exchange reserves, including running its interest rate and currency swap book. At the IMF he was part of the team that produces the semi-annual Global Financial Stability Report covering innovative financial products. More recently he has been focusing on fintech issues and central bank digital currency.

Patrick is a Member of the Secretariat of the Financial Stability Board with a focus on financial innovation. Prior to joining the FSB in January 2020, Patrick worked for the European Securities and Markets Authority where he led the financial innovation work.  Previously, Patrick was Head of Investment Risk Management at State Street Global Advisors. Patrick is a CFA, FRM and PRM. 

Aleksi Grym is head of fintech at the Bank of Finland. He leads a team that manages a portfolio of projects related to fintech, new payment technologies and digital currencies. He is a member of the Eurosystem's digital euro project steering group. Before joining the Finnish central bank he worked in the consulting and technology investment industry for 15 years in London and Helsinki.

Anneke Kosse is a Senior Economist at the Secretariat of the Bank for International Settlements’ Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI). Her portfolio includes conducting research and supporting the Secretariat’s policy and standard-setting work in the area of central bank digital currencies, cryptoassets and stablecoins. Previously, Anneke worked at the Bank of Canada, most recently as a Research Advisor at the Banking and Payments Department, where she was responsible for leading the Bank of Canada’s research agenda for the modernization of the Canadian payment system. Prior to that, Anneke worked for nearly ten years at the Dutch Central Bank, where she conducted research in the area of retail payments. Her payments research has been published in various peer reviewed journals. Anneke holds a PhD in Business and Economics from Tilburg University.

James Chapman is the senior research director in the Funds Management and Banking Department at the Bank of Canada. He received a Ph.D. in Economics and an MSc in Statistics from the University of Iowa in 2006. He joined the Bank of Canada as a senior analyst in that year. His primary research focus has been on interbank market and financial market infrastructure issues such as liquidity risk and credit risk in large-value payment systems as well as the efficiency of interbank markets. Recently his research focus has evolved to include research on fintech related topics. These topics include the use of distributed ledger technology in financial market infrastructure, specifically the Bank’s Project Jasper, as well as questions related to digital currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and initial coin offerings.

Abhaya Prasad Hota, - former Head of Payment Systems in Reserve Bank of India is known for his valuable contribution in design and development of payment system in India. After his central banking experience for 27 years mostly in the area of payments and technology, he headed the umbrella retail payments institution named National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) during 2009-2017 as its founding CEO. NPCI today handles 10 out of 13 types of retail payment systems in the country accounting for almost 80 percent of all  inter-bank retail payment transactions.  He played the key role in building the real time 24x7 retail money transfer system ( handling 110  million transactions  a day), domestic card payment system (the largest in the country in terms of number of cards issued in the country) and identity based Direct Benefit Transfer system  ( all government subsidies for social welfare programs passing through this DBT system).

Currently he serves as an Independent Director in the Boards of a few organisations in the area of banking and finance and speaks at various fora on design and development of national level payment system. During the year 2018-19, he was also in the World Bank Panel of Experts on Payment Systems.

Ms. Marianne Bechara is a Senior Fintech Counsel in the International Monetary Fund’s Legal Department, where she provides legal advice on Fintech, central banks legislation and supervision regimes of financial institutions. Prior to relocating to U.S., Ms. Bechara was senior legal counsel directly assisting the General Counsel of the Lebanese Central Bank and Capital Market Authority at the time. Ms. Bechara received her a Bachelor of Laws in both Lebanese and French laws from Saint-Joseph University, Lebanon, and her LL.M in Banking and Financial Law from Boston University, U.S. She also completed the Fundamentals of FinTech and Banking Law Program at the University of California, Berkeley, U.S. She is an attorney admitted to practice law in both California and New York, U.S.

Douglas W. Arner is the Kerry Holdings Professor in Law, RGC Senior Fellow in Digital Finance and Sustainable Development and Associate Director of the HKU-Standard Chartered Foundation FinTech Academy at the University of Hong Kong. In addition, he is Associate Dean (Taught Postgraduate and Development) of the Faculty of Law at HKU and co-founder and former Director of HKU’s Asian Institute of International Financial Law, as well as Faculty Director and co-founder of the LLM in Compliance and Regulation, the LLM in Corporate and Financial Law, the Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship (LITE), and the East Asian International Economic Law and Policy Programmes. Douglas served as Head of the HKU Department of Law from 2011-2014, as Director of the Duke University-HKU Asia America Institute in Transnational Law from 2005-2016, and as an inaugural member of the Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council from 2013-2019. He is a Visiting Professor and Senior Visiting Fellow of Melbourne Law School of the University of Melbourne, a Visiting Professorial Fellow of the Faculty of Law of UNSW Sydney, a non-executive director of NASDAQ and Euronext listed biotechnology firm Aptorum Group, an Advisory Board Member of the Global Impact FinTech (GIFT) Forum, Policy 4.0 and of the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE), and co-founder and an executive board member of the Asia Pacific Structured Finance Association. In 2020 he was awarded an inaugural Hong Kong Research Grants Council Senior Fellowship to study the role of digital finance in financial inclusion and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Douglas has published eighteen books and more than 200 articles, chapters and reports on international financial law and regulation, including most recently Reconceptualising Global Finance and its Regulation (Cambridge 2016) (with Ross Buckley and Emilios Avgouleas) and The RegTech Book (Wiley 2019 (Janos Barberis and Ross Buckley). His recent papers are available on SSRN at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=524849 , where he is among the top 50 authors in the world by total downloads, as well as among the top 15 law authors. Douglas led the development of Introduction to FinTech – launched with edX in May 2018 and now with over 100,000 learners spanning almost every country in the world – and the foundation of the edx-HKU Online Professional Certificate in FinTech. In addition, he has served as a consultant with, among others, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, UN, APEC, Alliance for Financial Inclusion, and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He has lectured, co-organised conferences and seminars and been involved with financial sector reform projects around the world. Douglas has been a visiting professor or fellow at Duke, Harvard, the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research, IDC Herzliya, McGill, Melbourne, National University of Singapore, University of New South Wales, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and Zurich, among others.

Thomas Moser is Alternate Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank. He is also a member of the Managing Committee of the Swiss Institute of Banking and Finance at the University of St. Gallen and a member of the Board of Directors of Orell Füssli Holding Ltd. From 2006 to 2009 he was Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, D.C., USA. Thomas Moser holds a MA and a doctorate in Economics from the University of Zurich.

Carl Andreas is senior advisor at the Riksbank. He is an experienced central banker and is currently involved in questions related to money and the digitalisation of payments. His latest research focus on cash demand. Claussen has worked at several central banks and done technical assistance and consultancy work for many more. He has published in academic journals, central bank outlets and blogs. He has a Phd in political economy from the University of Oslo, Norway.