The Fintech Talent Development,Competency, and Manpower Study

The Fintech Talent Development, Competency, and Manpower Study 12 Executive Summary (3) Recruiting from Local Universities Local universities have been stepping up efforts to nurture fintech talent by establishing degree programs at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. As of 2020, seven local universities have rolled out bachelor's or master's degree programs in fintech or offered a fintech stream in their programs. There are altogether ten bachelor's and master's degree programs. The number of locally trained fintech degree graduates will grow from around 150 in 2020 to over 450 in 2024. Fintech Degrees Rising, But Not Sufficient to Supply Hong Kong’s Needs The supply of fintech degrees is rising, yet a significant gap remains in the coming years. Data analytics and AI are key technologies to support the development of fintech. There are currently 20 bachelor's and master's degree programs related to data analytics, data science and artificial intelligence. By the summer of 2020, it is expected around 570 graduates with the knowledge of data analytics, programming, and mathematical modeling will enter the market. By 2024, the number will grow to 1,054. While not all of them will enter the finance industry, it is expected a good proportion will be recruited by financial institutions. Talent Development starts at an Early Stage In addition, to remedy the technical and behavioral skills gap in the fintech industry, changes in primary and secondary education are needed to scaffold the efforts of university-level programs. While certain technical skills can be learned by an adult in a relatively short time period, for the majority of the 13 behavioral competencies identified in this Study, the earlier these competencies are given the opportunity to be developed, the better. Online Training Programs To cope with the increasing demand for fintech professionals worldwide, a variety of online fintech programs were launched in recent years by MIT, Oxford, and many more institutions. HKU and HKUST Online Programs Well Enrolled at over 10,000 Students Local universities including HKU and HKUST offer online fintech programs on e-learning platforms such as Coursera and EdX. The number of enrolled students in these programs from HKU and HKUST has each reached more than 10,000. Local Universities are delivering classes online in 2020’s to cope with the COVID-19 Situation Many fintech-degree programs offered by local universities are being delivered using this mode in 2020.