The Inaugural China Fintech Conference 2016 was held on July 10th, 2016 in Beijing. The conference is hosted by Tsinghua University PBC School of Finance (Tsinghua PBCSF), co-hosted by China Renaissance, Tianfeng Capital, and Tsinghua University PBC School of Finance Fintech Lab. Regulatory authority officials, renowned scholars and industry elites home and abroad are invited to join the discussion on Fintech hot issues and express their views on the industry development and supervision system. Tsinghua PBCSF Associated Dean ZHAO Cen hosted the forum.

WU Xiaoling, Chairwoman and Dean of Tsinghua PBCSF, delivered a keynote speech titled “Data Application and Development of Finance Industry in Big Data Era”. She stated that financial innovation should respect financial regulations. While Fintech refers to the application of information technology in the field of finance, IT does not change the fact that credit intermediaries need standardized management. When using big data to deal with the core issue of information asymmetry between investors and fundraisers in the financial industry, special attention should be paid to the protection on individual’s information and data, she stressed, the application and exploration of the big data should not be at the cost of personal data property.

HUO Xuewen, Party Secretary of Beijing Municipal Bureau of Financial Work, stated that block chain technology would be a low cost solution to trust issues in financial activities and become an underlying technology of financial technology.

JING Xiandong, President of Ant Financial Services Group, believes that technology, for Fintech, is applied to enhance and improve risk management capability. He also hopes that inclusive financial regulation and classified supervision could be adopted to create more space for innovation.

JD Finance CEO CHEN Shengqiang believes that, on base of data and technology, Fintech Company is meant to serve financial industry and contribute to promoting efficiency and reducing cost.

ZHANG Xuyang, Senior Vice President of Baidu, said that more precise service could be tailored to individual customer’s investment target on the internet, which will mitigate investor’s risks.

LAI Zhiming, Vice President of Tencent Group, shared the successful experience of one of WeChat App products - Red Packet. He thinks that the first stage of a new financial application is “to connect with customers”, while the second is to maximize the value with the joined efforts of financial institutions, by means of cloud technology, financial cloud and big data.

Mike Cagney, Founder of SoFi, talked about the development of financial technology in the US. SoFi is a new kind of finance company taking a radical approach to lending and wealth management, helping people who are looking to buy a home, save money on student loans, ascend in their careers, or invest in the future to accomplish their goals and achieve financial greatness as a result.

LIAO Li, Tsinghua PBCSF Executive Associate Dean, made an in-depth analysis of the current situation of China’s online loan platforms. He suggests that supervision over market access and fund should be enhanced, and platforms should well disclose information on operation team, transaction and fund flows.

In the afternoon, the conference arranged five panels.

The first panel on “Internet Consumer Credit: A Blue Ocean or a Red Ocean?” was hosted by ZHOU Liang, Director of China Renaissance Group. Heated discussion was joined by TANG Xia, Chairman of CredEx Finance, SUN Haitao, CEO of 51 Credit Card Manager, HU Dan, CEO of Paymax, XIAO Wenjie, Founder of Fenqile, and ZHANG Jinghua, Founder of Weshare Financials. It is generally agreed that the capacity in consumer finance is still large. With the internet giants and traditional financial institutions entering the market, and the increasing competition, specified market orientation and segmentation is crucial to create more Blue Ocean opportunities.

The second panel “Internet Insurance: Will It Transform the Insurance Industry?” brought discussions on the impact of internet insurance on traditional insurance. WANG He, Executive Vice President of PICC P&C, REN Huichuan, President of Ping An Insurance Group, ZHOU Lei, Founder and CEO of Datebao, and LIU Bo, Chairman of Dadao Financials, joined the panel. MA Ning, Founding Partner of Tianfeng Capital and Lingfeng Capital hosted the discussion.

During the third panel “Big Data in Finance: Breakthroughs & Limitations”, guests got to a common view that legal data acquisition and proper data use should become a consensus with the rise of big data industry. Bob Carrigan, CEO of Dun & Bradstreet, LIAO Shihong, Founder of Vcredit Financial Technology, CUI Xiaobo, CEO of TalkingData, HU Tao, General Manager of Zhima Credit, and ZHANG Shaofeng, CEO of Bairong Financial, joined the discussion hosted by GU Lingyun, CEO of IceKredit.

In the fourth panel “An Investor’s Perspective: Trends in Fintech” a dialogue concerning the investment value and trend of financial technology was initiated between BAO Fan, Chairman and CEO of China Renaissance Group, and SHEN Nanpeng, Founding Managing Partner of Sequoia Capital China.

The last panel is themed “P2P Lending: Where Lies the Risk?”, with LUO Chuan, CEO of Daokoudai, as the moderator. Peter Renton, Founder of Lend Academy and Chairman and Co-Founder of LendIt, GUO Yuhang, Founder and Co-CEO of Dianrong, ZHANG Jun, CEO of Paipaidai, FANG Yihan, CEO of CreditEase, and YAO Hong, Founder of Weidai expressed their views on P2P supervision and regulation.

The Inaugural Ceremony of XIN Real Estate Fintech Research Center at Tsinghua PBCSF was also held at the conference, during which the Center released its blockchian research achievement for the first time.

Nowadays, Fintech is bringing in an unimaginable revolution and is gradually becoming a ‘new normal’ in the financial industry. China Fintech Conference is aiming to build a top Fintech financial conference platform in Asia and the world.