On May 8, 2019, Zhou Xiaochuan, President of China Society for Finance and Banking, Honorary Dean of Tsinghua PBCSF, gave an insightful speech on “interrelations between information technology and financial policies” exclusively to the students and faculty of the School at the Tsinghua PBCSF Global Academic Leader Forum. Zhang Xiaohui, Dean of Tsinghua PBCSF, presided over the session. .

Students and faculty at the Tsinghua PBCSF Global Academic Leader Forum

Zhou Xiaochuan pointed out in his speech that the technological progress in blockchain, big data, cloud computing, as well as network infrastructure and mobile internet, has reshaped the development landscape and brought diversified the research topics in the financial industry. On the other hand, the progress has also posed new challenges and set new requirements on the development and implementation of public policies, particularly in the finance,  thus leading to a series of changes.

Zhou Xiaochuan giving a speech to the students and faculty

Zhou Xiaochuan shared his insights on the interrelations between the information technology and financial policies from different perspectives, including “the winner takes it all” competition, the technological innovation traps, the main drivers of the technology market and the design and development of pilot programs and reward policies.

From the perspective of the interrelations of finance and IT industry, he suggested the financial industry should be sensitive to and supportive of new technologies to select the optimum ones through competition; and be tolerant of failures and accept the fast iteration cycle of the new technologies. From the perspective of the regulations, special attentions shall be paid to ensure the wide applicability of the current macro measures so as to maintain a stable development in financial industry. An effective motivation mechanism shall also be adopted to transform technological innovations into positive momentum, which will be of great benefits to financial services and industry development.

Zhou Xiaochuan also reminded students to be ready for the new challenges and explore new research topics in technological revolution. He encouraged the students to study, reflect and practice more in real scenarios.

At the end of the session, Zhou Xiaochuan joined discussions with the students and faculty.