FIDELITY INTERNATIONAL
“ With the skills and resources we have , we can go right from upfront consulting all the way to building and deploying IT solutions ”
KEITH BEAR ASSOCIATE PARTNER , ELIXIRR
institutional investors , there are still considerable barriers to adoption . That situation has not been helped by events involving FTX and Genesis .
Froehlich states : “ Even before FTX and other collapses , one of the biggest hurdles was regulation . For an institutional investor , especially if you invest on behalf of clients , you need a high degree of certainty that you are operating within an acceptable regulatory framework . That regulatory framework is not clear in most jurisdictions . There ' s a lot of challenges in understanding the current statutes , and they are also continuously evolving . But this issue is normal for new technologies , and it is an opportunity for established houses like Fidelity to help share the future of this industry .”
There is also a challenge in getting institutional investors to consider what they could be doing with digital assets . That necessitates a different approach and a different way of thinking from Fidelity . He likens it to the iPhone : when that groundbreaking technology was launched over 15 years ago , people didn ’ t understand the full capabilities of what they could do with it , whereas now it seems second-nature
EXECUTIVE BIO
KEITH BEAR
TITLE : ASSOCIATE PARTNER COMPANY : ELIXIRR
INDUSTRY : MANAGEMENT CONSULTING
LOCATION : LONDON , UK
Keith is an Associate Partner at Elixirr where he focuses on Digital Asset strategy engagements . He sits on the Bank of England CBDC Technology Forum , ESMA ’ s Consultative Working Group for Financial Innovation and mentors at the Techstars Barclays , ABN AMRO and Web3 Accelerators . He also serves as an Advisory Board member for a number of fintechs , as an Independent Director at DFNS , a wallet-as-a-service infrastructure provider , and on the Technology and Operations Resilience Committee at the London Metal Exchange . Keith is also a Research Fellow at University of Cambridge ’ s Centre for Alternative Finance , chairing the digital asset research programme which is supported by 15 public and private institutions including Fidelity . Previously , Keith led the Financial Markets industry at IBM .