We have highlighted multiple instances of HK’s hostility to real innovative phenomena (see here, here, here, here, and here) with its civil servants pouring tax payer money at vested interest groups, and only allowing heavily regulated, mandarin approved tech initiatives (eg virtual bank licences only granted to PRC linked applicants? see list here).

The result of this centralised strategy in promoting innovation is that big prizes such as reported below will increasingly head for fast moving competing jurisdictions such as Singapore and Switzerland…

Geneva gives Facebook’s cryptocurrency a warm welcome

Wed, Jun 26, 2019 – 5:50 AM


POLICY makers around the globe have been cool to the idea of Facebook Inc.’s planned Libra cryptocurrency. In Switzerland? They liked it so much, Facebook decided to set up shop there.

Geneva is “excited” to work with Facebook, the canton’s economic development chief Pierre Maudet said last week after it emerged Facebook had picked the Swiss city as the home of the Libra Association, a not-for-profit organisation that will govern the payment network and manage a financial reserve for the cryptocurrency.

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The move reflects the country’s light-touch approach to regulation and an enthusiasm for digital currency not shared by officials elsewhere who worry about its potential as a haunt for criminals.

“Switzerland’s regulation is much lighter than in other European countries when it comes to cryptocurrencies,” said Sven Korschinowski, a partner at KPMG. “It made sense for Libra to come to Switzerland.”
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Finma said last week it’s in contact with Facebook to determine if the project would need approval. More broadly, however, Finma’s approach to regulating crypto has gone down well with Crypto Valley executives. “Finma deserves a lot of credit for being very pragmatic and patient in the way they have been approaching the subject,” said John Hucker, the president of the Swiss Finance & Technology Association.

It was Switzerland’s appeal as a place to connect to civil society and international organisations that clinched it for Facebook, said Dante Disparte, a spokesman for Libra.

“Our goal is to manage Libra, the technology and the digital currency very much like a public good, so where better than Switzerland to make this kind of global organisation and project,” he said in an interview.

Cryptocurrencies also offer a new area to compete in now that Swiss private banking has been so undermined by foreign prosecutors looking to root out tax evaders stashing their fortunes in Switzerland, says Andre Brunner, a cryptocurrency expert at Capco in Frankfurt.

“With bank secrecy under threat, crypto is a door to a new world and you have the lawyers and the currency experts here, the ecosystems,” said Brunner. BLOOMBERG