Hong Kong will be hosting its third annual Hong Kong Fintech Week from October 29 to November 02, 2018. Hong Kong Fintech Week 2018 is set to be the world’s first cross-border fintech event that spotlights the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Hong Kong Fintech Week 2018 will run from October 29 to November 01 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, before moving to Shenzhen on November 02. Regulators, investors, academics and more than 200 fintech founders will be among the 8,000 attendees set to come to the event.

Hong Kong Fintech Week 2018 is presented by InvestHK and organized by Finnovasia and Finovate. Partners include the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), the Hong Kong Insurance Authority and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited.

“The Fintech developments we have seen in Hong Kong are phenomenal” , the Director-General of Investment Promotion at InvestHK, Mr Stephen Phillipps, said.

“They reflect the dynamic nature of the city and our strategic advantage of being right at the doorstep of China’s vibrant Fintech scence”

“This is the third year that we are co-organizing Hong Kong Fintech Week with InvestHK and we are glad to see that it is expanding into Shenzhen,” added Nelson Chow, chief fintech officer at the HKMA.

“We believe that this cross-border event will become a powerful conduit to foster development and application of fintech in the Greater Bay Area, and at the same time strengthen Hong Kong’s role as a springboard for Mainland fintech firms to ‘go global,’ and for global fintech firms to enter the Mainland market.”

This year, the Hong Kong Fintech Week will put the focus on Hong Kong’s key role in the Greater Bay Area’s fintech industry. The Greater Bay Area comprises half a dozen cities and 70 million people around the Pearl River Delta.

Key themes of the multi-day event will include artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, fintech in China, Greater Bay Area collaboration, and virtual banks. Other topics to be covered include regtech, insurtech, Open APIs, payments, wealth, financial inclusion, funding, and more.

Hong Kong Fintech Week 2018 highlights

The new Fast Track Programme, organized in partnership with InvestHK, is designed to help established fintech companies who are exhibiting at the Hong Kong Fintech Week 2018, start and scale their business in Asia, using Hong Kong as a launch pad. Key features will include on-site consultations, startup academy and an opportunity to pitch at the Fast Track Demo Show.

Selected companies will go through the program by meeting and following-up with the relevant stakeholders including the government, regulators, investors, venture capitalists (VCs), accelerators, associations and institutions in one simple track.

The Fintech Deal Floor will provide a platform fintech startups to meet with the right people for investment opportunities, collaboration, funding and more. To help bring everyone together, there will be business matching via a mobile and desktop app, allowing founders to plan and schedule their meetings from two weeks prior to the start.

Satellite events will also be taking place around the city, including an innovation lab tour and education events organized by universities and academic institutions.

Hong Kong Fintech Week 2018 will move to Shenzhen on November 02 for a networking lunch with government officials, senior company executives, venture investors and fintech founders. This will be followed by in-depth visits to the headquarters of WeBank, Tencent and ZhongAn with networking activities. During Shenzhen Day, participants will be able to meet key Mainland players to explore potential business opportunities in Shenzhen and the broader Greater Bay Area.

Hong Kong has been working hard to establish itself as a leading fintech hub. The government has led many initiatives to boost fintech innovation, nurture fintech talent, and facilitate collaboration between industry stakeholders.

The Hong Kong government’s 2018 budget, announced in February, pledged to allocate HK$500 million to the development of financial services over the next five years, including fintech.

The Head of Fintech at InvestHK, Mr Charles d’Haussy, also introduced the refreshed Fintech HK branding which highlights Hong Kong’s positioning in the region:

“We’ve also adopted ‘Launch • Leap • Lead’ as a tagline.

Hong Kong is the ideal place for Fintech companies to launch their business in Asia, after which they can take the leap to grow and expand outward, and then lead in the world of Fintech as so many other Hong Kong-based companies have done.”

This article first appeared on Fintechnews.hk