Going global inevitable for China's fintech

Hu Bin, deputy director of the Institute of Finance and Banking at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. [Photo by Feng Yongbin/chinadaily.com.cn]

It's inevitable that China's internet finance companies will go global, thanks to its vast domestic market and rapid growth, an official of the country's think tank said on Thursday.

With the internationalization of payment systems as an initial move, more and more Chinese internet financial companies will "go out" for equity investment and acquisitions to set up their global branches, Hu Bin, deputy director of the Institute of Finance and Banking at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said.

Hu made these remarks on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2017 in Hainan province which started on Thursday.

"We can already see the presence of Chinese players globally in trade settlements and retail payments," Hu said, citing the widespread use of Alipay and outbound investments made by Alibaba's financial arm Ant Financial Services Group.

He noted that such global expansion would also be in line with the renminbi's internationalization.

The biggest challenge lies in satisfying regulations required by destination markets with a coordinated regulatory body at home needed to start with, Hu added.

As a keynote research project, the Internet Finance Report 2017, released during the forum, states that China should learn from the United Kingdom and Singapore, in opening a trial space for innovative financial products and allowing healthy interaction between regulators and market participants.

Such relaxation should come under an innovative regulation system to ward off risks from mixed financial operation and arbitrage, according to the report.