Nearly every FinTech conversation eventually reaches a sidebar on China’s role in the ecosystem, given the prominence of unicorns like Alipay and Tencent. Most of the focus to date has been on the prospect of these players entering the US market, but the FinTech space in China itself is huge- over $31 trillion annually for credit cards and other third party payment processing. US and European companies have not yet tapped into China’s domestic electronic payment market.
“FinTech Power Houses: Where Atlanta and China’s Greater Bay Area Meet,” a forum jointly hosted by the Hong Kong Association of Atlanta and Georgia State University’s Confucius Institute, aims to address these topics. The theme of the one-day event, to be held on Wednesday, August 14 at the Carter Center, is an assessment of key FinTech business segments in the US and an exploration of the B2C FinTech space in Asia for potential partnerships and cooperation.
Our featured speaker with be former Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart in a fireside chat format. Global Atlanta Managing Editor Trevor Williams will also lead a panel discussion focused on updates on top-of-mind payments topics like blockchain, open banking and partnerships, as well as an update on Asia’s FinTech landscape. Anna Fan, Director of the New York office of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, will be on hand to provide her perspectives on the latter.
The agenda also includes a brief overview of China’s Greater Bay Area (GBA), which is poised to serve as the future hub of FinTech in Asia. Earlier this year, the Beijing government launched the GBA Initiative to link Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen and eight cities in the Guangdong Province of Southern China into an integrated business hub. Led by Hong Kong (the financial service and logistics hub) and Shenzhen (China’s Silicon Valley-style technology and innovation hub), the GBA’s economic impact is huge. With a combined population of over 70 million people and GDP in excess of $1.6 trillion, the GBA as a region would be the world’s 12th largest economy, greater than the combined GDP of Spain and Australia and accounting for roughly a third of China’s economic output. Unicorns like Alibaba, Tencent, and Softbank have already invested substantial amounts in Fintech related GBA projects.
This forum aims to supplement the value of annual events like FinTech South- staged by our partners at TAG’s FinTech Society- by further educating Atlanta professionals on the FinTech space in Asia led by Hong Kong, China and Japan.
Participation is capped at 160 and is already two-thirds committed, so I encourage those interested to visit https://www.hongkongatlanta.com/fintech/ and register soon. You can also contact me at yuhenry9@gmail.com for more information. I hope to see you there.
