Pan Asia Securities Lending Association
Valerie Rossi
08 December 2020
Valerie Rossi, treasurer of the Pan Asia Securities Lending Association, explains what is in place to tackle the problems currently facing inclusion in the securities lending industry
Image: Valerie Rossi
What are you trying to achieve with the PASLA Inclusion Network?
At PASLA, our purpose is to promote open, transparent and efficient securities lending in Asia Pacific by representing the common interests of everyone in the industry. Inclusivity is one of our core values and it’s at the heart of everything we do.
PASLA values and respects all perspectives from within the industry and among our stakeholders. This is the right thing for us to do, but it also makes perfect sense for the future of our organisation and industry in such a diverse region.
This is why we look forward to establishing the PASLA Inclusion Network (PIN) at the start of next year. PIN is key to our efforts to build a more inclusive community for securities lending in Asia Pacific, leveraging the fantastic diversity of experience, knowledge and perspectives that we have. By creating this inclusive network, we aim to ensure that everyone in our industry is heard and no-one excluded. We genuinely believe that we are more together than we are in isolation.
PIN will facilitate the exchange of ideas so that we can all benefit from the diversity of our industry and region. It will also seek to unlock hidden talent by giving people a chance to speak up, and we believe this will benefit PASLA’s member firms and the industry as a whole.
Lastly, we strive to raise awareness about the critical importance of inclusion in order to attract, retain and develop talent – as well as to secure the long-term growth and resilience of our industry.
We will be hosting an in-person launch event for PIN in Hong Kong early next year when social distancing permits. Once we have successfully launched in Hong Kong, we will endeavour to launch in Japan and Singapore as soon as we can.
What is the biggest challenge facing improving inclusion in the Asian securities lending industry?
The biggest challenge for inclusion in Asian securities lending is just how diverse the region itself and its markets are. Each market has its own understanding of what inclusivity means, and their own priorities for how to strengthen it, which are closely linked to their respective cultures in Asia.
As a pan-Asian network, our goal with PIN is to build some consensus about the importance of inclusivity for our industry, while respecting local differences. This mission is very closely aligned with PASLA’s goal of working with partners to seek the gradual harmonisation of securities lending market standards across the region, while recognising that markets are at different stages of development.
What is in place to tackle the problems facing inclusion in the securities lending industry?
At the moment, members of PASLA are senior representatives of major financial institutions in Asia Pacific, which drive their own distinct diversity and inclusion agendas underpinned by their corporate values.
We are very privileged to be able to draw on this community, who are able to bring valuable insights into the inclusion challenges we face as an industry and share their ideas on how to address them.
To be more effective in doing that, though, we need to know where we are today. That’s why we’ll be releasing the results of a new industry survey, which includes responses on inclusion, in the first quarter of next year.
That will provide us with an evidence-based assessment of the current situation for the industry and help us understand the changes we need to make. All these results will be relayed back to the market and the survey participants for full transparency.
What is the future looking like for inclusion in the Asian securities lending sector?
Inclusion is front-and-centre for all the financial institutions we work with but they are at different phases of awareness and implementation.
At PASLA, we take inclusion very seriously and it is not just a ‘check-list’ exercise for us. As an advocate of inclusion, we want to initiate some hard but important discussions and rectify some old habits that have limited inclusion in the past.
In my view, building awareness is key. It begins with all of us as members of the securities lending community to lead by example, revisit the way we do things and try to make a difference.
With us collaborating closely as an industry and taking small steps together, I believe the future is bright for inclusion in the Asian region.
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