[session 1] Crypto Regulation in APAC: A Practitioner’s Perspective

Irfan Ahmad

Vice President

State Street Digital

Irfan Ahmad is the product lead for State Street Digital in APAC, State Street’s newest division focused on digital assets and technologies, encompassing the setup of a new integrated business and operating model to support clients’ entire digital investment cycle from pre-trade, trade, and post-trade as well as other initiatives designed to enhance the client experience. Irfan joined State Street in EMEA in December 2014, where he worked in the company’s Business Architecture function. Since then, he has worked in strategy, regulatory product development and sales in London and Hong Kong. He is now based in Singapore and leads efforts relating to digital assets in the region. Prior to joining State Street, he worked across Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities (FICC) technology at Barclays Investment Bank, where he was responsible for their ‘Run the Bank’ project portfolio, service management and business continuity management in EMEA. He later joined the Algorithmic Electronic Trading Technology and Trade Processing Engine team, where he oversaw risk and control practices within EMEA. Irfan holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in economics and economic history from the University of Manchester.

Charles d'Haussy

APAC Managing Director

ConsenSys

Charles d’Haussy is Asia Managing Director at ConsenSys, a leading blockchain engineering company. Among his responsibilities, he leads ConsenSys’ projects on central-bank digital currencies with Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Bank of Thailand. Prior to this, Charles served as head of fintech with the Hong Kong government (InvestHK). In that capacity he helped found and scale Hong Kong Fintech Week, and supported the growth of over 450 fintech companies. Hehas 15 years of prior experience in Hong Kong’s private sector and is licensed to invest and deal in securities. In 2018, Charles was elected as a Top-50 fintech influencer in Asia. In 2021 he published Block Kong, a book about Blockchain leaders shaping the Hong Kong blockchain ecosystem. He studied in France at Rennes International Business School and in Guangzhou, China at Sun Yat Sen University. He is a certified Bitcoin professional and studied blockchain business strategy at Be9 London.

Julian Sevillano

Managing Director and Head of Digital Assets

Promontory

Julian Sevillano is a Managing Director and Head of Promontory’s Digital Assets practice. Julian’s team has industry-leading digital assets risk and compliance expertise. Promontory supports digital assets firms, banks, and bank regulatory agencies in areas ranging from bank licensing and chartering, to digital assets policy and program development and implementation. The team’s recent engagements include drafting the SPDI supervisory guidance for the Wyoming Division of Banking, and advising Anchorage on its OCC National Trust Bank charter. The team is also working with banks and payments firms helping them evaluate the risk and regulatory compliance implications of supporting digital assets activities.

Roland Schwinn

Managing Director and Head of Business Development & Partnerships

Sygnum

Roland Schwinn is Managing Director and Head of Business Development & Partnerships at Sygnum. Before joining Sygnum, Roland was the Head of Eurex Asia, the derivatives exchange of Deutsche Boerse Group, where he was in charge for APAC & Middle East and led partnerships with other exchanges. He also served as a Director on the Board of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), and earlier was the Head of Business Development for APAC & Middle East of Eurex. Roland started his career at the Deutsche Terminboerse (DTB - the predecessor of Eurex in 1990. Currently, Roland also serves on the Board of the Muscat Stock Exchange in Oman. Becoming a research fellow at SMU (Singapore Management University) in 2015 and researching the utilization of Distributed Ledger Technology for financial markets, Roland has been an early adopter and investor in digital assets. He holds a Postgraduate Diploma in European Business Studies from the University of Leicester (UK), and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Applied Sciences Trier (Germany).

Peter DeMeo

Head of Digital Asset Infrastructure

IBM Systems

Peter globally leads IBM Systems confidential computing technology solutions for crypto assets that further secures institutional digital asset custody, exchange operations, and tokenization solutions. Peter is responsible for market development, technology roadmaps, and building sales and services infrastructure. As a certified design thinking facilitator, Peter also helps clients enhance their solution's capabilities by leveraging IBM's Hyper Protect Services on premise and on the IBM Cloud.  Peter holds a US Patent for hardened policy based transaction signing.   Peter is a regular speaker at blockchain conferences. Prior to his relocation to Asia Pacific from Washington DC in 2013, he was practice leader for Enterprise Architecture, including the divisions large scale software development efforts and IT strategy consulting for US Federal clients including the Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Depository and Trust Corporation, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security. He was also a contributing author to enterprise architecture publication: Coherency Management: Architecting the Enterprise for Alignment, Agility and Assurance (2009).