Episode 78 with Oonagh van den Berg, Prof. Peter Reuter, and Dr. Mirko Nazzari 🎧

In this episode, returning guest and compliance expert Oonagh van den Berg discusses why current AI regulation approaches fall short, based on her LinkedIn article, “Rethinking AI Regulation: Why Current Approaches Are Falling Short.” She highlights the limitations of fragmented national laws, the need for a global AI rulebook, and the role of public education in shifting from blind trust to informed verification. Geopolitical pressures and coordination challenges further complicate regulation.

The conversation then turns to anti-money laundering (AML) with Professor Peter Reuter and Dr. Mirko Nazzari, authors of “How Well Does the Money Laundering Control System Work?” They explore the systemic limits of AML, including over-complex compliance, inefficiencies, and impacts on financial inclusion. The “firehose” of suspicious activity reports illustrates both the potential and challenges of intelligence gathering, often hindered by under-resourced agencies.

Reuter and Nazzari emphasize that AML is not just about preventing laundering but targeting predicate crimes. They examine tensions between enforcement, privacy, and effectiveness, and the growing costs and obligations in sectors like cryptocurrency. They also highlight uneven global implementation and the difficulty of reform, despite widespread recognition of system shortcomings.

The episode closes with reflections on improving AML through better data, academic research, and collaboration between regulators and the private sector, offering pathways for realistic, evidence-based reform.

Podcast Discussion Covers:

• Oonagh van den Berg: Why Current AI Regulation Approaches Fall Short
• Case for a Global AI Rulebook & Public Education
• Reuter & Nazzari: How Well Does the AML System Work?
• Simple Schemes, Complex Challenges - The Limits of AML
• Compliance Trap & Who Benefits from Broken AML Processes
• Scaling Back Enforcement: US Policy Shifts & AML Compliance Limits
• From Firehose to Insights: Value of AML Reports
• AML Overreach, Financial Inclusion, and Effectiveness
• Beyond the Label: AML as a Tool Against Predicate Crime
• Tension Between AML Enforcement, Privacy, and Practical Effectiveness
• Reflections on the Global AML System and Path Forward

About Our Guests:

Oonagh van den Berg – Founder of Raw Compliance, lawyer, and educator with experience across Asia, now based in Braga, Portugal.

Dr. Mirko Nazzari – Postdoctoral research fellow in Political Science at Università degli Studi di Sassari, Italy, specializing in AML, cybercrime, and public policy.

Professor Peter Reuter – Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, Stockholm Prize in Criminology recipient, and leading authority on financial crime and policy evaluation.

The Regulatory Ramblings podcast is brought to you by The University of Hong Kong's Reg/Tech Lab (Building Better Financial Systems), HKU-SCF FinTech Academy, Asia Global Institute, and HKU-edX Professional Certificate in FinTech, with support from HKU Faculty of Law. The program is led by Douglas Arner and hosted by Ajay Shamdasani.

For more details about the authors and links, please visit: hkufintech.com/rr

HKU FinTech is the leading fintech research and education in Asia. Learn more at www.hkufintech.com.

Episode 77 with Lotte Schou-Zibell, Ian, and Raoul 🎧

In this episode, veteran international expert on financial sector development & digital transformation Lotte Schou-Zibell unpacks why correspondent banking links have thinned in smaller markets - and why the fix isn’t “more rules” but smarter, cheaper, more consistent compliance built on shared digital public infrastructure: foundational ID, tiered KYC, interoperable payment rails, straight-through reporting, and utilities multiple banks can use instead of rebuilding controls. Lotte also points to AI-assisted regulatory mapping that lowers the “cost of certainty,” and argues for interoperability via APIs over any single-chain “panacea.” MDBs and partners matter here - funding capacity, aligning standards, and helping restore (and keep) cross-border access.

She discussed Root-to-Revenue Bamboo: how geotagged roots plus geospatial mapping and other DPI elements create verifiable, data-rich assets. That alternative data can underwrite inclusive credit (collateral and cash-flow lending to farmers and MSMEs), support carbon credits and climate-linked finance, and feed traceable value chains for housing materials and textiles - turning “root as asset” into bankable livelihoods and climate resilience.

We also chat with Ian Morrison and Raoul Montgomery for late summer hiring pulse in legal & compliance. Across London, Hong Kong, and Singapore, hiring cooled over summer and is edging back: banks are freezing mid-junior roles while selectively adding senior, multifaceted leaders to redesign controls, merge compliance/fincrime, and decide where to deploy AI and outsourcing. Outside traditional investment banking, insurance, digital assets/crypto, family offices, private wealth, and consulting show steadier demand. Chinese firms expanding in Hong Kong are lifting the premium on Mandarin and experienced local compliance leadership. Geopolitical risk is being reorganized - not retired - and is increasingly client-facing.

Podcast Discussion covers:

• Late-Summer Hiring Pulse in Legal & Compliance
• Freeze Below, Hire Above - Geo-Risk Moves Client-Facing
• Beyond Credentials - Soft Skills for Legal & Compliance
• Lotte Schou-Zibell, A Veteran’s View on Finance
• Early Sparks - Crossing Cultures from Sweden to the US and Beyond
• Why IMF and ADB - Crisis Lessons Meet the Asian Tigers
• Inclusion to Climate - How Policy and Tech Rewired the System
• Geotagged Bamboo: DPI, and Inclusive Credit, Root to Revenue for Finance, Housing, Resilience
• From AML Burden to a Finternet - Genome to New Rails
• Foundational ID to DPI - Shared Rails and Smarter Compliance to Keep Links Open
• Beyond the Panacea - From Blockchain Hype to Interoperable Rails
• Cutting Through the Noise - From Learning to People-First Solutions, and the 5th Asia Finance Forum at ADB Manila

The Regulatory Ramblings podcast is brought to you by The University of Hong Kong's Reg/Tech Lab (Building Better Financial Systems), HKU-SCF FinTech Academy, Asia Global Institute, and HKU-edX Professional Certificate in FinTech, with support from HKU Faculty of Law. The program is led by Douglas Arner and hosted by Ajay Shamdasani.

For more details about the authors and links, please visit: hkufintech.com/rr

HKU FinTech is the leading fintech research and education in Asia. Learn more at www.hkufintech.com.

Episode 76 with Joshua Chu, Syed Musheer Ahmed and Sean Lee 🎧

The common theme for this episode is FinTech and Web3 writ large – with an eye towards digital assets and virtual currency.

In Spotlight segment, we’ll be speaking with a returning guest and a dear friend of the program – Syed Musheer Ahmed of Hong Kong-based FinStep Asia on the recently disseminated the “Hong Kong Web3 Blueprint: Building a Web 3 International Financial Hub” report. Joining Musheer is Sean Lee, co-lead of Web3 Harbour's Policy Committee and one of the key leaders of the Blueprint taskforce.

Following that, we’ll be chatting with local lawyer Joshua Chu on the recently passed US GENIUS Act and what it means for making the US a stablecoin hub.

Context and implications:

• What truly makes a digital-asset hub beyond regulation;
• How Hong Kong’s Web3 Blueprint prioritizes talent, infrastructure, and market use cases;
• What the US GENIUS Act and Hong Kong’s stablecoin regime mean for issuance and market structure;
• Where stablecoins and CBDCs can coexist—and the legal traditions shaping each path;
• Risks to monitor: speculative excess, meme coins, corporate BTC treasuries.

The Regulatory Ramblings podcast is brought to you by The University of Hong Kong's Reg/Tech Lab (Building Better Financial Systems), HKU-SCF FinTech Academy, Asia Global Institute, and HKU-edX Professional Certificate in FinTech, with support from HKU Faculty of Law. The program is led by Douglas Arner and hosted by Ajay Shamdasani.

For more details about the authors and links, please visit: hkufintech.com/rr

HKU FinTech is the leading fintech research and education in Asia. Learn more at www.hkufintech.com.