Zhejiang University International Business School (ZIBS) has concluded the Fintech and Regulatory Innovation (FTRI) Program for its inaugural China cohort, according to a statement from the organizers. The school reports that this cohort was comprised of 34 executives and senior managers from Mastercard, Invesco Asia-Pacific, PwC, State Street, and other unnamed institutions from across China.
ZIBS explains that participants were asked to derive innovative ideas to tackle Fintech challenges. Topics included payments, credit, digital currencies, cross-border accelerator programs, digital KYC, and other issues surrounding Fintech. The session was organized for the cohort participants to leverage the knowledge gained from the FTRI Program.
Aimed at global leaders, ZIBS states that it launched the FTRI Program to provide a thorough understanding of Fintech, regulation, and innovation models. The course is exclusively licensed by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) at the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School for delivery in China.
Special guests like Peter Morgan – Vice Chair of Research at the Asian Development Bank Institute, and Herbert Poenisch – Bank for International Settlements’ Former Senior Economist, were invited to offer feedback on the future of Fintech.
Dr. BEN Shenglin, Professor and Dean of ZIBS, commented on the program:
“China is a global leader in Fintech and the digital economy. The leadership is most pronounced in the Yangtze River Delta region, with both Shanghai and Hangzhou ranked among the top global Fintech hubs. ZIBS is right at the center of this thriving region and is well-known for our innovation and incubation of FinTech. Our students enjoy joining a globally-renowned Fintech ecosystem with our distinguished faculty comprised of thought leaders, industry practitioners, policymakers, as well as entrepreneurs and investors.”
CCAF Co-founder and Executive Director, Bryan Zhang, opened the session and commended the cohort for their success in the program. He thanked ZIBS, for its “long, meaningful and impactful collaboration in research and education with the CCAF.”
Andrew Bok Chuan Wei – Head of Consumer Assets & Liabilities Management, DBS Bank (China) Limited said the program focused not only on business and regulation in Asia but also in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Scandinavian Countries. This helped him understand the FinTtch landscape across jurisdictions:
“The modules were very informative. Normally, we always look at big companies and big firms and I feel that the literature on these companies can be researched online. But ZIBS and CCAF took the effort to consolidate interviews and videos from owners and senior managers of small- and medium-sized start-ups that we perhaps do not have insights into when we do our own research. So that was really engaging and was the highlight of my learning of the module.”
According to ZIBS, the expansion of Chinese E-Commerce firms to overseas markets raises issues with local payment options. A study of the local online shopping and payment trends of the target market was recommended.
Other ideas explored were for local Fintech startups and the need to increase opportunities for cooperation between financial institutions and tech SMEs.
ZIBS noted that since China’s Central Bank has moved into digital money with a digital yuan security aspects necessary for digital money were also discussed, including how to improve cross-border money transfers for offshore trade business in China.
China is also seeing rapid growth in the digital wealth management market. However, investors are often uninformed. It was suggested that entry barriers should be lowered by creating a digital ecosystem. It was also felt that customers need to be better educated.
Steps to improve the digital KYC experience were also explored.
ZIBS said that specific ideas targeted towards firms like Amazon were also considered. FTRI program participant Ran Zhao – Digital Innovation Program Manager, Amazon Web Services (AWS), addressed how the interaction between Fintech companies, financial institutions, investors and accelerators, incubators and universities, AWS and regulators, could be strengthened.
ZIBS reported that FTRI saw many ideas for the betterment of the Fintech landscape in China and the rest of the world.