The Fintech Talent Development,Competency, and Manpower Study

The Fintech Talent Development, Competency, and Manpower Study 35 Ten Observations About Fintech in Hong Kong "Regulator engagement" was the second most frequently selected challenge among surveyed organizations (selected by 40% of surveyed organizations) 2nd most common challenge out of 25 options Exhibit 12 Regulator engagement as one of the top business challenges Observation 10: Regulators—More Frequent Engagement and Adaptive Regulatory Framework There was a strong consensus among those surveyed that the regulators play an instrumental role in industry development. An improvement in regulator engagement was mentioned frequently as being one of the most common challenges in the industry. They expressed the need for a more collaborative regulatory approach in which industry players and regulators can exchange views, aspirations, and concerns more frequently and candidly. This would help regulators to be more responsive and keep up with the pace in this fast-evolving industry. Some felt that the transitioning of the Mainland into a tech-driven fintech ecosystem has been faster than Hong Kong due to the former’s more flexible and adaptive approach towards regulations. More frequent reviewing of regulations would help the industry strike a balance between driving innovation and mitigating risks. Lastly, many of the fintech professionals mentioned the positive impact of the regulators’ fintech initiatives such as the issuance of virtual bank and virtual insurer licenses, the introduction of the Fintech Supervisory Sandbox, Banking Made Easy Initiative, Cybersecurity Fortification Initiative and the Open Application Programming Interface (API) framework.