Alisha Chhangani

Associate Director, Future of Money

Atlantic Council

Alisha Chhangani is an associate director at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. She supports the Center’s future of money work, leading research on payments systems, central bank digital currencies, stablecoins, cryptocurrencies, and other digital assets. Her research and comments have been featured in media outlets including BBC, Financial Times, Washington Post, the Economist, and Politico.

Prior to joining the Atlantic Council, she worked at the Asia Society Policy Institute on cybersecurity and data privacy issues in Southeast Asia.

Chhangani holds a bachelors’s degree from American University’s School of International Service with a certificate in applied statistics, graduating with magna cum laude honors.

Speaking at

4:00–5:30pmTue 23 JunGFTN InsightsRoundtable Room 3, Ground FloorOpen
Empowering Entrepreneurship

The Future of Standard-Setting in Fintech Regulation

GFTN InsightsRoundtable Room 3, Ground FloorOpen
About this session

Countries worldwide are competing to attract fintech investment, talent, and innovation. But understanding the quality of fintech regulation remains a work-in-progress. Are rules and institutions working in lockstep to promote fintech? Are these rules findable, coherent, and comprehensive enough to give firms, consumers, and supervisors genuine confidence? Can they promote innovation, market access as well as economic opportunity?
The Financial Regulatory Futures Index (FRFI) is a joint initiative of the Fintech Foundation and GFTN designed to fill that gap. Structured around five analytical pillars, the FRFI will assess regulatory environments not by perception or reputation, but by reference to verifiable primary sources: statutes, supervisory guidance, licensing frameworks, and enforcement records. Its methodology is being developed by five specialist working groups comprising leading regulators, central bankers, academics, and industry practitioners from over 30 jurisdictions. An Executive Council – comprising globally recognized thought-leaders and experienced policy innovators – will oversee the development of this initiative.
This roundtable will offer one of the first public windows into the emerging draft methodology, including how the Index defines and scores: regulatory clarity and comprehensiveness, consumer protection and market conduct, innovation and market infrastructure, resilience and integrity as well as economic opportunity and market access.
It will open a moderated discussion on the Index's intended policy impact, the trade-offs embedded in any cross-jurisdictional benchmarking exercise, and how the FRFI can best serve as a tool for peer learning and reform rather than as a simplistic league table. Feedback from regulators, practitioners, academics and subject matter experts in this conversation will inform the methodology ahead of its launch at DC Fintech Week in October 2026.
12:00–1:30pmThu 25 JunGFTN InsightsRoundtable Room 2, Ground FloorOpen
Blueprint for Digital Assets

Building a Practitioner's Guide for Tokenization in Finance: Working Group Members Convening

GFTN InsightsRoundtable Room 2, Ground FloorOpen
About this session

The problems that constrain tokenization at scale do not belong to one working group, one institution, or one regulatory perimeter. Cross-ledger settlement, stablecoin licensing fragmentation, FMI readiness in developing markets, and the legal enforceability of smart contracts are structurally connected with each a precondition for the next, each requiring actors across infrastructure and regulation to work from the same evidence base.
This session brings both working groups together for the first time in person. Working Group 1 (Interoperability and Infrastructure) and Working Group 2 (Regulation, Trust, and Governance) will each present their problem statements before presenting to the Oversight Panel. The purpose is to establish shared understanding of the initiative's full scope, test framing with peers who approach the same challenges from different vantage points, and sharpen the asks that each working group will direct to the Oversight Panel in the session that follows.
About the initiative
GFTN has launched _Tokenization in Finance: Evidence and Implementation Pathways_, a structured, multi-stakeholder initiative convening two working groups drawn from leading financial institutions, infrastructure providers, and market participants to assemble a practitioner-oriented evidence base spanning spanning digital money and payment rails through to tokenized real-world assets, securities, funds, and capital markets infrastructure. At Singapore FinTech Festival in November 2026, the initiative will publish a practitioner guide designed to give financial institutions a structured basis for sequencing their digital asset strategies, and to equip regulators and finance ministries in emerging and developing economies with implementation pathways they can draw on directly.
2:00–3:30pmThu 25 JunGFTN InsightsRoundtable Room 2, Ground FloorOpen
Blueprint for Digital Assets

Building a Practitioner's Guide for Tokenization in Finance: Oversight Panel Convening

GFTN InsightsRoundtable Room 2, Ground FloorOpen
About this session

Tokenization is reshaping financial infrastructure across many economies. The decisions that are being made now on architecture, standards and governance will determine whether that infrastructure serves developed and emerging and developing economies, or leaves some behind. Ensuring that outcome requires senior public sector voices at the centre of these conversations.
This session brings both working groups and the public sector Oversight Panel together for the first time. Working group leads will present their confirmed problem statements on what the evidence shows, and receive feedback and recommendations that working groups will pursue to build the practitioner's guide that will publish at Singapore FinTech Festival in November 2026.
About the initiative
GFTN is launching _Tokenization in Finance: Evidence and Implementation Pathways_, a structured, multi-stakeholder initiative convening two working groups drawn from leading financial institutions, infrastructure providers, and market participants to assemble a practitioner-oriented evidence base spanning spanning digital money and payment rails through to tokenized real-world assets, securities, funds, and capital markets infrastructure. At Singapore FinTech Festival in November 2026, the initiative will publish a practitioner guide designed to give financial institutions a structured basis for sequencing their digital asset strategies, and to equip regulators and finance ministries in emerging and developing economies with implementation pathways they can draw on directly.

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Hosted by

Alisha Chhangani

Speaking at

The Future of Standard-Setting in Fintech Regulation

Building a Practitioner's Guide for Tokenization in Finance: Working Group Members Convening

Building a Practitioner's Guide for Tokenization in Finance: Oversight Panel Convening