Our Chairman, Paul Richards, was one of a select group of senior figures in the world of finance invited to a private World Bank forum on global government borrowing on May 3-4th. Hosted by the French Minister of Finance and Vice-President of the World Bank in Paris, the event facilitated candid exchanges on debt management strategies and an exchange of views on capital market topics of common interest to Finance Ministers from around 40 countries. Paul was invited to give his perspective on the impact of regulation and financial technology on financing, leading a panel discussion involving senior regulators, investors and FinTech executives.

Paul’s view of the event was “I was privileged to be invited to chair a panel of distinguished figures in the world of global debt financing. They were all there to discuss some of the creative strategies employed by debt management offices to manage their government’s funding programmes. We took a look into the future and debated what changes may be around the corner in financial technology and investor trends. “The panels covered topics ranging from socially responsible bond issues to future liquidity in debt markets and discussed broad themes of how to attract new investors for government projects in, for example, infrastructure, healthcare or education.”