Speech by Ir. Allen Yeung, JP, Government Chief Information Officer, at the “CSI Alliance: Tri-finity Launch Ceremony”
George (Dr LAM), Liming (CHEN), Eric (YEUNG), distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
Good afternoon. Today I am pleased to join you all to witness the launch ceremony of the Alliance among Cyberport, the Smart City Consortium (SCC) and IBM with the objective to promote FinTech development in Hong Kong.
Last December, the Government released the much anticipated Smart City Blueprint for Hong Kong. The Blueprint maps out development plans for the next five years. It aims to enhance the effectiveness of city management, to improve people's quality of living, as well as to enhance Hong Kong's attractiveness and sustainability by making use of I&T.
The Blueprint lists out various strategies and initiatives in six major areas, namely "Smart Mobility", "Smart Living", "Smart Environment", "Smart People", "Smart Government" and "Smart Economy". Among these areas, "Smart Economy" calls for strengthening our current pillars and developing new ones. FinTech is identified as one of the key areas to generate new momentum for our economic development. Under this pillar, the Government will promote various FinTech initiatives such as to explore distributed ledger technology and to formulate a framework to facilitate the wider adoption of API by the banking sector.
Under the area of "Smart Living", there are several FinTech initiatives which will bring greater convenience to our citizens. Among these initiatives, mobile payment solution is intimately related to our daily lives. Since the establishment of the Regulation of Stored Value Facilities (SVF), Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has already issued 13 licences. Three licenced banks are also offering SVF products. In the past year, they started to offer a number of mobile payment solutions to the customers. To further facilitate P2P payments, HKMA will launch the Faster Payment System (FPS) in September this year. The FPS will provide a round-the-clock real-time payment platform. It will allow banks and SVF service providers to offer their customers and merchants a faster, more convenient and comprehensive payment and transfer services.
At this moment, different SVF service providers have their own QR code standards. To facilitate further development of mobile payment, HKMA is leading a working group to explore a common QR code standard. The new standard will facilitate merchants, especially SMEs, in using one single QR code to accept payments from various service providers
Among the initiatives in the Smart City Blueprint, eID is an important element to foster the development of FinTech in Hong Kong. We will provide an eID for all Hong Kong residents by 2020. This will be a key digital infrastructure for smart city development. eID can ensure secure access to online transactions and services, including day-to-day and mobile financial transactions, provided by public and private organisations using a single digital identity and authentication. This will foster the development of a new technology service model that place emphasis on direct interface of businesses and government with consumers and citizens.
Actively trying out new technologies forms an essential part of the ecosystem. Under the "Smart Region Living Lab" of the Smart City Blueprint, HKMA, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and the Insurance Authority (IA) have rolled out joint sandboxes to facilitate FinTech innovations. With the collaboration among the three regulators, the sandboxes are linked up so that there is a single point of entry for pilot trials of cross-sector FinTech products. Without a doubt, their efforts will trigger additional FinTech innovations by the industry players.
We believe the close collaboration among the public and private sectors to be a key success factor of both FinTech and smart city development. I’m glad that Cyberport, Hong Kong Smart City Consortium and IBM are joining hands. I’m confident that Hong Kong’s FinTech sector will spare no time in capturing any opportunities brought by technology innovations. Finally, I wish the Alliance every success!
Thank you very much.
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