Professor Fabian Schär

This roundtable reflects Elevandi’s commitment to developing the infrastructure to support the adoption of new technologies.

Following initial experiments with public blockchains in the unregulated space, the focus is now on potential applications in the regulated sector. The opportunities that could arise for traditional financial institutions by using public blockchain systems with global reach and 24/7 availability shall be discussed. Keywords are efficiency, trust, cost reduction and usability. With new opportunities come new risks. The implementation of a public blockchain as a transfer infrastructure poses various risks that need to be adequately addressed, such as operational, reputational and legal risks.

Operating under the theme of Decoding Digital Assets and Payments, the roundtable will discuss the extent to which these risks can be mitigated or whether such risks hinder the implementation of use cases. Switzerland's DLT legislation already outlines some concepts that can be deepened and compared with other approaches. The aim of the roundtable is to discuss potential use cases for blockchain as a transfer infrastructure in the regulated sector.

Hosted by FINMA, the roundtable is primarily aimed at supervisory authorities and representatives of the financial industry or academia who are interested in blockchain and its implementation in the regulated area.

The following questions will be discussed:
- What potential use cases can benefit from the implementation of a public blockchain as transfer infrastructure in the regulated sector?
- What are the risks and opportunities? What risk mitigation measures need to be applied?

This is one of two discussions surrounding permissionless/public blockchains in the financial services at the Insights Forum. Find out more at the "Permissionless blockchain in financial services" session, where industry players table their perspectives.

Attendees who wish to familiarise themselves with the topic may refer to the reference materials below.
- Building towards a vision of open and interoperable networks