Navigating the Financial Frontier: Point Zero Forum 2023 Explores Digital Assets, Sustainability, and AI in an Ever-Evolving Landscape

Jaskaran Bhalla, Content Lead, Elevandi

The Point Zero Forum is returning for its second edition between 26 to 28 June 2023 in Zurich, Switzerland. The inaugural Forum held in June 2022 attracted over 1,000 senior-level attendees and featured more than 200 esteemed speakers from Europe, Asia-Pacific, the USA, and MENA. The Forum represents a collaboration between the Swiss State Secretariat for International Finance (SIF) and Elevandi and is organised in cooperation with the BIS Innovation Hub, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), and the Swiss National Bank.

As we gear up for this year’s Point Zero Forum, let's take a moment to reflect on some of the pivotal moments that have shaped the financial industry since the previous Forum and also moulded the three key themes that will take centre stage this year: Sustainability, Artificial Intelligence, and Digital Assets.

In November 2022, the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt hosted the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP 27), with a view to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon future. In the build-up to COP 27, Ravi Menon, the Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore spoke at the inaugural Transition Finance towards Net-Zero conference in October and shared with the audience that the world is currently not on a trajectory to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. And according to the UN Emissions Gap report 2021, based on the current policies in place, the world is 55% short of the emissions reduction target for 2030. He also elaborated on the significant role that blended finance can play in tackling climate change, a theme that widely resonated with the global leaders at COP 27. To enable easy and transparent reporting on climate commitments, the Climate Data Steering Committee  (CDSC) outlined next steps on its recommended plans for the Net-Zero Data Public Utility (NZDPU) at COP 27. NZDPU aims to aid efforts to transition to a net-zero economy by addressing data gaps, inconsistencies, and barriers to information that slow climate action.

The Point Zero Forum 2023 will deep-dive into the data, technologies, capital and risk management solutions that can accelerate the fair transition towards a low-carbon future.

Panel Discussion Highlight: The opening panel discussion, titled "Data for Net-Zero: Views from the Climate Data Steering Committee," scheduled for 26 June, will feature members of the CDSC, which include the Financial Conduct Authority, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), and the Swiss State Secretariat for International Finance. The panel will discuss the role of new technologies and collaborative platforms in promoting greater accessibility of transition data and innovating new business models.

The launch of ChatGPT by OpenAI on 30 November, 2022 led to widespread adoption by users globally - eventually setting the record for the fastest growing active users, hitting 100M monthly active users by Feb 2023. While on one hand users rushed to share enormous efficiency gains achieved by the use of ChatGPT (this study by MIT points to an 37% increase), on the other hand ChatGPT soon became a disruptive tool to spread fake news (this AI generated pic even caused the S&P 500 index to fall).

The Point Zero Forum 2023 will deep-dive into Generative Artificial Intelligence’s potential for enhancing efficiency, improving risk management and providing better customer experience in the financial services industry while highlighting the need for ensuring fair, ethical, accountable and transparent use of these technologies.

Panel Discussion Highlight: The session titled “Breaking New Ground with Generative AI: Project MindForge”, scheduled for 27 June, will feature global leaders from NVIDIA, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Citigroup and Bloomberg. The panel will be speaking on the opportunities of Generative AI for the financial services sector.

More than 2.5 years after it was first proposed, the EU Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation was approved in April 2023 by EU Parliament. While there is still work to be done to implement MiCA and measure its success, and to answer open questions around regulation for out-of-scope assets (like DeFI and NFTs), the digital assets industry is keenly observing whether MiCA could serve as a template for global crypto regulation. In May 2023, International Organization Of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), the global standard setter for securities markets, also joined the global discussion on digital asset regulation by issuing for consultation detailed recommendations to jurisdictions across the globe as to how to regulate crypto assets.

The Point Zero Forum 2023 will do a stocktake on key global regulatory frameworks, market infrastructure and use cases for the widespread adoption of digital assets, asset tokenisation and distributed ledger technology.

Panel Discussion Highlight: The sessions titled “State of Global Digital Asset Regulation: Navigating Opportunities in an Evolving Landscape” and “Interoperability and Regulatory Compliance: Building the Future of Digital Asset Infrastructure”, scheduled on 26 and 27 June respectively, will feature global leaders from both public sector (such as the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Bank of Italy, Bank of Thailand, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, EU Parliament) and private sector organisations (such as JP Morgan, Sygnum, SBI Digital Assets, Chainalysis, GBBC, SIX Digital Exchange). They will be speaking on digital asset regulations and key considerations in the rapidly evolving world of digital assets.

Attend the Consequential Policy-Technology Dialogue in Financial Services

Join central bankers, regulators and industry leaders at the Point Zero Forum for a series of leadership dialogues, public-private roundtables and deep-dive workshops to drive confidence, adoption and growth of transformative technology. Those who are interested in joining may register now at: https://www.pointzeroforum.com/registration. Receive 10% off the Industry Pass by entering the code JB10 at check out.

• Policymakers, regulators, think tanks, and academics receive complimentary access.
• Founders of tech companies (incorporated for less than 3 years), can apply for a discounted Founder’s Pass.