Alibaba’s Jack Ma praises the disruptive nature of digital currencies

Jack Ma, the now-retired founder of Alibaba Group, recently spoke to a crowd of bankers and regulators at the Bund Summit in Shanghai about the role digital currencies will likely play in the future global financial system:

“Digital currency could create value and we should think about how to establish a new type of financial system through digital currency.”

He opined that the current financial system governed by Basel Accords is too conservative and does not fit China’s growing economy:

“After the Asian financial crisis, the risk control highlighted in the Basel Accords has been only focused on risk control, not on development, and rarely do they consider opportunities for young people and developing countries.”

The Basel Accords provide international regulation for banks that is meant to reduce the systemic risk in the global economy. The rules became particularly stringent with the passing of Basel III in 2008 in response to the global financial crisis. 

Announcing his retirement in 2018, Ma said that he would go back to teaching. Despite Ma’s departure, Alibaba continued to grow, becoming one of the world’s biggest companies by market capitalization.