On the afternoon of October 21, the 2nd Chengfang Fintech Forum was held as part of the Annual Conference of the Financial Street Forum 2020. Chen Yuan, Vice Chairman of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and Chairman of the Executive Council of China Finance 40 Forum (CF40), Yi Gang, Governor of the People's Bank of China (PBC) and Chen Jining, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee and Mayor of Beijing, addressed the forum.
Yi said that the central bank has earnestly implemented the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council and pushed for extensive application of AI, big data, cloud computing, distributed ledger, e-commerce and other technologies in the financial sector under the direct guidance of the Financial Stability and Development Committee under the State Council. While having greatly facilitated people's access to financial services, fintech has also brought about various issues such as challenges in digital transformation of traditional finance, protection of business secrets and personal information, and the “digital divide” facing groups such as the elderly who have trouble getting public services with smart devices. In response, a well-defined legal framework should be put in place to prevent misuse of personal information and business secrets. Meanwhile, we should improve the financial regulation system, strengthen international cooperation, and retain some traditional financial transaction channels and service modes such as small-amount cash payment, so as to fully protect the legitimate rights and interests and serve the basic needs of various groups while enabling them to enjoy the benefits of fintech.
Chen said that Beijing has laid great emphasis on the high-quality development of the financial sector, which has maintained strong momentum of development and grown into a pillar industry. Fintech has been flourishing amid robust innovation in the capital city. As a national financial administration center, Beijing will resolutely implement the important instructions made by General Secretary Xi Jinping on opening up a path of financial development with Chinese characteristics and take full advantage of the policies for the development of a national integrated demonstration zone for greater openness in the services sector and the Beijing Pilot Free Trade Zone to push forward the supply-side structural reform in the financial sector. Committed to serving national strategies, the city will strengthen forward-looking planning for fintech, propel innovation in underlying key technologies through deeper integration of financial resources and sci-tech resources, promote China's fintech to go global by expanding higher-level opening-up, and provide more efficient financial services with higher quality for the real economy, thereby contributing more to the innovation-driven development of China's financial sector.
Fan Yifei, Deputy Governor of the PBC, Cai Esheng, Vice Chairman of the CF40 Executive Council, Wu Zhaohui, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and President of Zhejiang University, and Li Yang, academic division member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Chairman of the National Institution for Finance and Development gave speeches on site. Eric Maskin, Professor at Harvard University and a Nobel laureate in economics, delivered remarks via video link. At the forum, the attendees discussed a wide range of topics such as how to fully leverage the role of fintech to accelerate the development of the digital economy, how to establish an international collaborative fintech development platform and how to continuously underpin fintech innovation capacity.
Jin Wei, Secretary-General of Beijing Municipal Government, also attended the forum.
(Reporters: Gao Zhi, Wu Hongli)
