The former head of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has called for environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) concepts to further expand to the level of personal finance.
“While enterprise conduct is subject to ESG constraints, personal conduct in actuality is also an ESG issue,” said Zhou Xiaochuan (周小川) during a speech delivered at the 6th Fudan Chief Economists Forum (第六届复旦首席经济学家论坛).
“Of course at present ESG generally speaking refers to enterprises, but if we speak of individuals, do we also need to use the term ESG…t’s simply the case that enterprises have ESG and individuals have ESG also.”
The former PBOC head called for the concept of ESG to play a greater role when it comes to the development of personal finance in China.
“We should expand the concept of ESG, and expand it to the individual,” said Zhou. “This means that how we choose models for personal finance in future will enable financial services to play a more stable and sustainable role, as well as be of benefit to ESG for society as a whole.”
Zhou also called for further investigation of the latest fintech methods, with an especial emphasis upon the use of big data.
“In the era of big data the accumulation of big data has great potential, and usages in many areas,” said Zhou. “These new fintech contents require more in-dpeth research and analysis, concerning to what extent and using what methods they can be applied to personal lending.”
