Fintech integration to promote real economy, experts say

Integration of fintech will power the development of more industries and provide impetus to the real economy, said experts at the fintech forum held during the sixth World Internet Conference in Wuzhen on Sunday.

Liu Liehong, vice-minister of the Cyberspace Administration of China, said fintech has become an important indicator of economic development as it has grown smarter and increasingly inclusive.

At the same time, financial information service supervision faces more challenges.

In this sense, cooperation on the domestic and global level should be strengthened.

Tony Huang, president of the digital finance business group at Ant Financial Services Group, said mobile payment has narrowed the gap of development in different areas in China. Online lending platforms have provided capital to the micro-and small-sized enterprises, which are the "capillaries of the real economy".

The new retail model pillared by fintech has helped accelerate the digital upgrading of these small businesses, he added.

"Mobile payment has bolstered domestic consumption," Huang said. "In the long run, the integration of technology and business, embodied by the development of fintech, will help with the ongoing supply side reform."

Li Yang, chairman of the National Institution of Finance and Development, said as fintech is applied in more real-time scenarios, it will help monitor the country's economy from the macro-perspective by focusing on credit flow. The development of fintech will also help address the problem of non-performing loans by introducing more innovative products, he said.

Lesly Goh, former CTO of the World Bank, said China is able to drive the reform and revolution in certain areas related to fintech development given its huge market size and earlier adoption.

Robert Opp, chief digital officer of the United Nations Development Programme, also said the integration of fintech and agriculture in China, which drives the development of smart agriculture, can be a good example for the rest of the world to follow.

The People's Bank of China, the central bank, issued the FinTech Development Plan (2019-22) in late August, which pointed out a fundamental policy framework for fintech to be built by 2021.

The three-year plan listed six key tasks for fintech development, including increasing fintech products and improving financial services, aimed at better supporting the real economy and reducing risks.

Fan Yifei, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, said top-level planning is crucial to guiding the development of fintech so that it can be better integrated into different industries and better serve the development of the real economy. Meanwhile, systematic supervision should also be in place to ensure the sound development of new products, he said.