On Tuesday 15th October, we organized a conference entitled “When technology meets financial markets” in collaboration with Lëtzblock at the Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL).

Partner Gary Cywie opened the conference with the topic “Smart contracts processed through digital ledger technologies (DLT) and blockchains in particular could disrupt the asset servicing industry”.

Many specialists believe that financial markets would become more efficient if certain trading and post-trading processes were made through blockchains. Transactions would settle in near real-time whilst bringing costs down. In addition, this would increase transparency for regulators and investors themselves.

In fact, technology would put investors back in the position in which they were before the introduction of information technology in the financial markets sector: in direct contact with the issuer.

Nothing seems to impede such developments from a purely technical point of view. Current national and cross-border legal and regulatory regimes, however, may not be fully ready to govern such developments effectively”.

Partner Karl Pardaens provided an overview of the current financial market transactions legal and regulatory framework. Mr Ciarán McGonagle from the International Swap and Derivatives Association (ISDA) then talked about Smart Derivatives Contracts, whilst distinguishing the concepts of “smart legal contracts” and “smart contract code” and their impact on ISDA’s standard contracts.

With Partner Gary Cywie and Biba Homsy from Lëtzblock as moderators, a panel of experts then discussed use cases in Switzerland and France, about tokenisation and custody of digital assets; how the Swiss regulatory authorities approached Fintech matters in general; whereas there were areas of development or impacts for the Luxembourg fund industry; how Luxembourg regulatory authorities approaches such technology and business models developments as well as the challenges and opportunities for banks and central securities depositaries.

The panel was made up of Mr David Hagen from the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF), Mr Gilles Walers from the Association des Banques et Banquiers de Luxembourg (ABBL), Mr Bernard Simon from the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, Mr Fedor Poskriakov from the Swiss law firm Lenz & Staehelin and Mr Laurent Marochini from Société Générale Securities Services.

The conference was followed by a cocktail reception.

Post conference quotes from attendees include:
“I’m attending many Fintech conferences but it’s been a while I did not learn things as tonight”
“It was a great event, difficult to do better”
“Great panel discussion and perfect balance between local and international speakers, industry and regulatory/associative worlds”
"A big thank you for organising a very interesting conference with a panel of well-known and well-informed speakers".

Please click on the following link to learn more about our ICT, IP, media and data protection practice.