China Suffers from Shortage of Fintech Talent: Former Head of Sovereign Wealth Fund

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The former head of China’s sovereign wealth fund has highlighted the fintech sector’s talent shortage at a recent industry event in Shanghai.

Tu Guangshao (屠光绍) , formerly the president and vice-chair of China Investment Corporation (CIC), hailed the robust accomplishments of the Chinese fintech sector during a keynote speech delivered at the “2019 China Banking Sector Development Forum Smart Finance (Shanghai) Summit” (2019中国银行业发展论坛智慧金融(上海)峰会) held on 17 September.

“Mainland China ranks first in terms of the fintech adoption index, which is the usage of fintech by our financial institutions and finance sector,” said Tu.

“However, we have encountered a talent shortage…a PriceWaterhouseCooper report makes reference to this, [estimating] China’s fintech talent shortfall at around 1.5 million.

“Other people have analysed the issue and say that it’s more than 1.5 million….in summary there is a shortfall in talent relative to demand.”

Tu called for the highly targeted development of fintech talent, as well as greater cooperation between government, financial enterprises and educational institutions.