Hong Kong's Hui on FinTech, AI and Start-Ups

Bloomberg

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00:00We were just saying that this is the 10th anniversary of the FinTech Week in Hong Kong,

00:03but what's the main message that you're going to be bringing to people that are going to be attending today?

00:08I think, first of all, in terms of the scale and participation, it has been very overwhelming.

00:14And right now, we have more than 600 exhibitors and also more than 500 speakers all across the world.

00:20And also, at the same time, we have more than 20,000 tickets sold.

00:24So, with our 10th anniversary of FinTech Week, what you see is that the momentum is really strong.

00:28And also, back to your point about the 10th anniversary, if you look back 10 years ago, we only have around 1,600 startups.

00:36Now, we have almost 5,000 startups.

00:39And at the same time, in particular, for FinTech-related startups, we have more than 1,200.

00:45So, you can see that this is really a landscape which is rapidly evolving.

00:50And in particular, Hong Kong has come to a stage where we have put together a lot of policy statements

00:55in terms of how we view digital assets, responsible AI, and also concerning fixed income and currency markets.

01:03So, all these paved the way for a very sort of foundation for continuous growth of our financial service sector.

01:09One of the areas that's been most interesting on the regulation side this year has also been that promise around stablecoins.

01:14But on that stablecoin progress, we've heard at the same time about China telling some of its brokers, for instance,

01:20to stop touting stablecoins to try and cool that rush.

01:24Off the back of that, have you heard of any stablecoin companies or applicants pulling out?

01:28If you look at the overall policy framework that we put together for our digital assets,

01:34basically, what we say is the LEED framework, including legal and regulatory streamlining,

01:40and that refers to legislation you mentioned.

01:42And also about the E is on the expansion of product suites, in particular, tokenized products.

01:49And for A is about advancing the use cases.

01:52And the P is about partnership and also people development.

01:54And back to the point about the legislation that we've already put in place.

01:59Right now, we already have around 11 regulated digital asset exchanges operating in Hong Kong and regulated by us.

02:07At the same time, as you said, the stablecoin legislation has already been effective,

02:11and we are now assessing the application, and we will issue the licenses soon next year.

02:17On that point, though, around regulation and what's coming ahead,

02:20you've just recently also returned from Beijing and Hebei at the end of October.

02:26You had some meetings there, including with the top official that's overseeing Hong Kong as well.

02:31What was the main message that you received on the outlook for Hong Kong,

02:34not just in terms of digital assets, but also the broader financial landscape?

02:39For our trip to Beijing and also to Hebei, basically, we went to places.

02:44One is Tongzhou, which is like the administrative capital of Beijing,

02:50where they moved many of the Beijing-related government entities over there

02:54in such a way that they can leave more room right now in the capital for other users,

02:58especially for those central government agencies.

03:00And another place that we went to is Hebei, which is about Xiongan,

03:04which is a place where they moved many of the SOEs right now in Beijing to there as well.

03:10And I think what we see, first of all, is that there are very much the ambition

03:14and also the vision of the government to lead these developments.

03:19And at the same time, it is very much very well planned

03:21and also well articulated in terms of what they plan to do

03:24and what they have set out to do.

03:26So I think all these will have particular relevance to our current plan

03:30to develop our northern metropolis, because it's similar to what they are doing.

03:35We are going to develop a new piece of land, which is one side of the South Hong Kong,

03:38and at the same time, it requires planning and also the same time collaboration,

03:42not just with the public sector, but also the private sector.

03:46And this is exactly the major observations that I had during the trip.

03:49What about the process around IPO reform as well?

03:52Has there been any talk of that, plans to ease rules for Chinese companies

03:56that are looking to have dual listings, both in New York but also Hong Kong?

04:00Right now, we will have a rather strong pipeline for our IPOs.

04:04Our stock exchange is processing around 300 of them in terms of IPO applications.

04:08And so far this year, we have already around 70 new listings

04:12and having an IPO process of around $180 billion Hong Kong dollars.

04:17So what we can see is that it's a very sustained momentum

04:19and at the same time underpinned by a very strong pipeline.

04:22And we will expect this to continue.

04:24This is a big week for summits in Hong Kong.

04:29There's a lot of different events that are taking place.

04:31What is one thing that you think is going to be different this week

04:35compared to what you've seen in years past?

04:37And what is as well the biggest risk that you see to Hong Kong's resurgence?

04:40I think there are two words I would emphasise.

04:43For fintech, it's about implementation because Hong Kong is a very pragmatic place.

04:48At the same time, when we try to regulate the market,

04:51we have to make sure that we have regulation.

04:54At the same time, we are taking a facilitating role towards market development.

04:57That's why across the fintech week, for example,

05:00you see many use cases and many scenarios

05:02where you have actually actual implementation of fintech solutions.

05:06So implementation is the key.

05:08Another thing is about fundamentals.

05:10Because what you see is that so far with the upsurge of our stock market,

05:14as you highlighted,

05:15at the same time with the strong pipeline that we have on the IPO,

05:19it's not just a momentous development.

05:23Rather, it's underpinned by strong fundamentals,

05:26including one country, two systems,

05:28the strong economy that's part of the world.

05:30At the same time, the regulatory and also market changes

05:32that we've introduced over the past few years

05:34in our stock market and capital markets.

05:36So we expect this to continue.

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