financial regulation

On November 26, 2025, CIEL Director, Vice President Wang-Ruu Tseng , delivered the opening remarks at the “Sustainable Finance and Financial Regulation Seminar,” setting the tone for the event. CIEL Deputy Directors Chao-Hung Chen and @Yueh-Ping (Alex) Yang also served as speakers, sharing insights on sustainable finance from the perspectives of legal frameworks, disclosure mechanisms, and regulatory tools.

Deputy Director Chen, presenting on “Indirectly Regulating Corporate Sustainability through Financial Institutions,” highlighted that while using financial institutions to restrict capital flows or influence market participants can achieve policy goals, it also raises challenges regarding legitimacy, legal applicability, costs, and governance. Indirect regulation should complement direct regulation, rather than making financial institutions an overly relied-upon policy instrument.

Deputy Director Yang, in his presentation titled “Reassessing Securities Fraud Regulation through Sustainability Disclosure,” emphasized that most sustainability disclosures are not directly related to securities fraud and are primarily addressed through administrative mechanisms. However, sustainability disclosures provide an opportunity to revisit the distinction between securities fraud and financial misrepresentation rules, as well as the interpretation of several key elements such as materiality, transaction causation, and fraud on the market theory.

The seminar brought together experts from academia, government, and industry to explore sustainable finance from multiple angles. CIEL will continue to actively participate in discussions and research on sustainable finance, working alongside stakeholders to advance a more robust legal and regulatory framework.

The roundtable session was moderated by CIEL CEO Chung-Chia Huang, joined by panelists Deputy Director Chao-Hung Chen, Deputy Director Yueh-Ping Yang, Prof. Ying-Shin Tsai, and Assoc. Prof. Yi-Chen Lai.

Legal Characterization of Tokenization

CEO Chung-Chia Huang opened the discussion by raising a core question: Should the legal nature of tokens be determined by the underlying rights they represent or by the electronic records on the blockchain itself? Deputy Director Chen opined that tokens often sit between claims and property rights, functioning more like “value carriers.” He noted that the current international trend increasingly relies on the concept of “control” to determine ownership. This elevates the role of system operators in identifying and transferring rights. Deputy Director Yang observed that domestic courts tend to treat tokens as movables, while academics consider them intangible assets; the legal categorization remains unsettled. Associate Prof. Lai further reminded the audience that whether tokens possess exclusive control is still unclear—reflecting the ongoing evolution of their legal nature.

Regulatory Adjustments and Tokenized Payment Instruments

On the regulatory front, panelists emphasized the need to consider emerging risks within the existing legal and regulatory framework. Deputy Director Yang explained that if a tokenized payment instrument retains its original functional characteristics, existing regulations may continue to apply. However, when market volatility, ledger unpredictability, or anonymity introduce new risks, regulatory reinforcement becomes necessary. Many jurisdictions regulate stablecoins under frameworks similar to electronic payments, illustrating this approach. He also noted that tokenized payments exert limited impact on monetary policy, as funds ultimately settle back within the banking system.

Cross-Border Finality and AML Challenges

During the open Q&A, participants first asked how to determine finality in cross-border transactions. Deputy Director Yang explained that if a single stablecoin dominates the market, its issuer can define finality within its system. However, in a more diverse market, financial institutions probably can negotiate common principles to define finality through contracts. Globally, two approaches coexist: one relying on the distributed ledger itself as the basis for finality, and another centered on “control,” which is conceptually closer to possession.

Regarding AML, when smart contracts automatically settle transactions to blacklisted addresses, risk allocation often depends on contractual arrangements. However, if blacklist information relies on international databases, information asymmetry may arise—posing an important regulatory challenge for Taiwan.

Global Trends in Tokenization

Finally, audience asked about international use cases and trends for tokenizing financial and non-financial assets. Deputy Director Chen noted that global regulation remains fragmented, with high-value financial assets more likely to be tokenized first. Assoc. Prof. Lai highlighted Japan’s experimentation with lower-value assets—such as alcohol products, GameFi items, and hotel usage rights—to reduce public concerns, suggesting that tokenization may expand gradually from everyday-use scenarios.

CIEL will continue advancing research on RWA, tokenized payment instruments, and Web 3.0 financial regulation. Through interdisciplinary analysis across civil law, criminal law, financial regulation, and international standards, we aim to offer concrete policy recommendations. Our goal is to help Taiwan build a corporate legal framework that balances innovation with stability amid rapid technological and regulatory transformation, while strengthening CIEL’s role as a key platform for industry–government–academia dialogue and legal innovation.

The NTU Center for Innovative Enterprise Law (CIEL) commits to overcome the legal challenges faced by enterprises amid rapid technological change and market development. This year’s seminar, themed “Web 3.0 Finance and Regulatory Innovation,” explored the potential impacts of tokenization on asset markets and payment systems, and proposed future directions for Taiwan’s legal and regulatory frameworks.

Session I featured a talk by CIEL Deputy Director Prof. Christopher Chen with Associate Professor Yi-Chen Lai from Tohoku University being the discussant. The session focuses on “Real World Asset (RWA) Tokenization”, with following take-aways:

Legal Foundations of RWA Tokenization: Rights and Value Represented by Tokens

Deputy Director Chen highlights that tokenization of assets follows the long history of using legal instruments to represent underlying assets, rights, or value. To understand legal infrastructure of asset tokenization, one can explore legal techniques applicable to various kinds of securities and instruments that may represent a variety of assets, rights or values. In turn, the nature of underlying assets or values might affect legal underpinnings of ‘real-work assets’ and subsequent issues of transaction design, legal validity, and risk allocation.

Balancing Technological Advantages and Legal Risks

While technological and tokenization of assets may offer some benefits such as transactional efficiency and fractionalization of ownership, Dr Chen cautioned that there could also be new legal issues and challenges facing RWAs that require solution in the future, no matter it is based on private ordering or requires legal clarifications in statutes.

Nuanced Classification of Rights and Its Implications

Dr Chen further examined how assets, rights, or value can be integrated into legal instruments, which in turn determines the liquidity of the assets represented by the token. Building on this, the nature of the rights embodied in an asset token directly affects the applicable legal framework. Whether tokenization should fall within the domain of private autonomy or requires explicit legislative intervention remains an important policy question.

International Insights and Forward-Looking Issues

Deputy Director Chen highlighted that RWA-related law and policy can draw from existing regulatory structures and international developments. Associate Professor Lai noted that practice field in Japan have already conducted pilot projects involving gold, sake, and other assets, raising debates over token legal characterization, asset transfer, and rights enforcement. Assoc. Prof. Lai further posed a thought-provoking question: if RWAs begin to represent personal attributes, identity categories, or other status-related characteristics, what legal issues would arise? This underscores the high malleability of RWAs and the accompanying regulatory uncertainty, reinforcing the importance of sustained research in fintech law.

The session concluded successfully, further reinforcing CIEL’s direction to advancing research on RWA and fintech regulatory frameworks, with the hope of contributing forward-looking insights to Taiwan’s future legal innovation.

On October 21, 2025, CIEL was pleased to welcome Professor Nizan Geslevich Packin, jointly appointed at the City University of New York and University of Haifa, to the center for academic exchange. CIEL’s Deputy Director, Professor Yueh-Ping  Yang, engaged in an in-depth discussion with Professor Packin on corporate governance and financial technology regulation, with a focused dialogue on three major topics: prediction markets, open banking, and crypto-assets.

Prediction Markets: Blurred Regulatory Boundaries
Professor Packin shared her recent research on prediction markets, highlighting how prediction markets and online gaming platforms seek to redefine themselves as financial services or futures market providers, thereby avoiding traditional gambling regulations. She further shared examples from the United States, including market operators acquiring shares in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and interactions with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)—trends that may reshape the regulatory landscape in the future.

Open Banking: The Political Economy of Data-Sharing Governance
Deputy Director Yang shared his recent work on open banking, noting that his research draws on Professor Packin’s previous scholarship in the field. The dialogue extended to developments in the EU and Australia, and particularly the shifting stance of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) regarding open banking—especially the political considerations behind data-sharing fees and access rights.

Crypto-Assets: The Balance Between Innovation and Oversight
Professor Packin shared her perspectives to be presented at FinTech Taipei 2025, and both scholars exchanged views on the regulatory rationales surrounding crypto-assets, including stablecoins. Professor Packin expressed regulatory concerns regarding the inherent risks of the crypto asset market and stablecoins, while Professor Yang shared his observation of Taiwan’s regulatory stances and evolving regulatory framework in this domain.

CIEL will continue to closely monitor the intersection of financial regulation and technological innovation and promote dialogues and collaborations between international scholars and global academic networks.

Deputy Director Yueh-Ping Yang of CIEL was invited by the Asia FinTech Alliance to chair the online seminar “Regulatory Perspectives on FinTech Innovation in Taiwan” on March 25, 2025.

Serving as moderator and opening speaker, Deputy Director Yueh-Ping Yang introduced the session, which featured two distinguished speakers. Brenda Hu, Director of the Department of Financial Market Development and Innovation at the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), presented on Taiwan’s FinTech development strategies and progress, highlighting policy support and emerging industry opportunities. Alex Huang, Chief of the Securities Firms Division at the Securities and Futures Bureau of the FSC, shared Taiwan’s practical experience in virtual asset regulation and discussed the latest regulatory developments.

The session concluded with a comprehensive Q&A, offering participants an opportunity to engage directly with the experts and deepen dialogue.

This online seminar focused on Taiwan’s FinTech development strategies, practical approaches to virtual asset regulation, and the balance between regulation and innovation. It provided international industry leaders and policymakers with insights into Taiwan’s regulatory direction for FinTech and virtual assets, while also fostering a platform for collaboration across industry, government, and academia.

From February 4 to 7, 2025, Deputy Director Professor Yueh-Ping Yang of our Center was invited to participate in the Transnational Program organized by the Faculty of Law, Waseda University. He delivered a lecture titled “FinTech’s Challenges to Financial Regulation: An Accountability Perspective” to the participants of the program.

The Transnational Program is a long-standing international short-term course hosted annually by Waseda University’s Faculty of Law. The 2025 program focused on the theme of financial technology (FinTech) and was jointly organized by Professor Shuichi Furuya, Director of the Graduate School of Law at Waseda University, and Professor Atsushi Koide. Participants included faculty members and students from National Taiwan University (Taiwan), Seoul National University (Korea), Queen Mary University of London (United Kingdom), Bucerius Law School in Hamburg (Germany), and Waseda University (Japan). The program featured lectures and student group presentations on various FinTech-related issues.

In his lecture, Deputy Director Yueh-Ping Yang highlighted how the emergence of FinTech—characterized by the cross-border nature of the internet, the decentralization of blockchain, and the automation of artificial intelligence—has diluted and restructured the traditional “regulatory intermediaries” upon which financial supervision has long relied. This transformation poses significant challenges to conventional accountability frameworks in financial regulation.

Deputy Director Yang further proposed several potential directions for regulatory adaptation. These include: (1) direct regulation of FinTech providers, (2) indirect regulation of FinTech providers through traditional financial institutions, and (3) technical regulation conducted in cooperation with non-financial regulatory authorities.