13:45 - 15:00 - Fintech 2019

Data in the modern economy

One of the most important policies currently discussed at European level are the concepts of sharing, use, privacy and ownership of personal and non-personal data. Europe has taken a lead with the GDPR and left the US and China to play catch up in terms of data privacy. However, having a strict legislative framework does not allow for a flexible use of data. Are the EU’s stringent data privacy policies compatible with the development of new technologies based on large amounts of data? Japan and the EU have taken the important step of including data transfers into their Free Trade arrangements.

Is this a model to respond to the increasing tend towards national data localisation? How will the fragmentation of data impact the development of big data solutions and the growth of FinTech? Will it hinder the industry from scaling up? What is the right balance between ownership and use of data?

Moderator: Farisa Zarin

Chief Government and Public Policy Officer, Moody’s

Reza Khorshidi

Chief Scientist, AIG

William Min

Deputy General Counsel & Chief Privacy and Data Governance Officer, Western Union

Hartwig Gerhartinger

Vice-President, Legal and Regulatory, Deputy General Counsel, Paysafe Group, Paysafe

Wendy Jephson

Head of Behavioral Science, Nasdaq

Marcus Schüler

Managing Director - Head of Regulatory Affairs and Market Structure, Tradeweb

More about the speakers

Valdis Dombrovskis

Vice-President for the Euro and Social Dialogue also in charge of Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, European Commission

Valdis Dombrovskis is the Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Euro and Social Dialogue, also in charge of Financial Stability, Financial Services and the Capital Markets Union. Prior to that, he served three consecutive terms as Prime Minister of Latvia, becoming the longest serving elected head of government in Latvia’s history. Before becoming European Commission Vice-President, Valdis Dombrovskis was elected for the second time as a Member of the European Parliament (first, 2004-2009) and Head of the Latvian Delegation in the EPP Group. He served as a Member of the Saeima (Parliament) of Latvia (March 2004 – June 2004; January 2014 – June 2014) and was Latvia’s Minister of Finance from 2002 to 2004.

Valdis Dombrovskis was born on 5 August 1971 in Riga, Latvia. He graduated with a degree in physics from the University of Latvia (1993) and economics from Riga University of Technology (1995). He received his master’s degree in physics in 1995 from the University of Latvia. In 1995 -1998, he worked as a research assistant at Mainz University, Germany, at the Institute of Solid-State Physics in Latvia and at the University of Maryland (USA).

Prior to joining politics, he worked as a senior economist and Chief Economist at the Bank of Latvia (1998-2002). Together with Anders Aslund, he co-authored the book “How Latvia came through the financial crisis”, which was published in 2011. In November 2014, Valdis Dombrovskis was awarded the Order of the Three Stars (Triju Zvaigžņu ordenis), the highest State Decoration of the Republic of Latvia.