The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has released a new guidance policy for the development of the Chinese fintech sector until mid-decade.
PBOC recently issued the “Fintech Development Plan (2022 – 2025)” (金融科技发展规划（2022-2025年）), which “proposes guidance opinions for the development of fintech in a new era, and clarifies overall thought for the digital transformation of finance, as well as development targets, key missions and implementation guarantees.”
The Plan highlights the development principles of “digitally driven, wisdom for the people, green and low carbon, fairness and inclusion,” while also calling for “strengthening the application of financial data as a factor of production, making the deepening financial supply-side structural reforms the goal, and strengthening fintech macro-prudential regulation.”
PBOC proposes key missions across eight areas in the new fintech plan:
- Strengthening fintech regulation, comprehensively forging digital capability, improving multi-party participation, establishing a joint-progress digital ecosystem.
- Comprehensively strengthening the development of data capability, driving the orderly sharing and comprehensive application of data under the preconditions of security and privacy protections; fully invigorating the potential of data as a factor of production; vigorously raising financial services quality and efficiency.
- Establishing green data centres, establishing fully secure financial networks, further solidifying the foundations for the innovative development of finance.
- Deepening digital technology financial applications, improving secure and efficient tech research application mechanisms, continually strengthening openness and innovation and cooperative win-win industry ecosystems.
- Improving secure and highly efficient fintech innovation systems; establishing integrated operating platforms that combine operations, technology and data; establishing smart risk control systems.
- Deepening the smart re-forging of financial services, establishing services channels that connect multiple factors, striving to create barrier-free services systems, and providing more inclusive, green and personalised digital financial services to the masses.
- Accelerating the comprehensive application of regtech; strengthening the development of digital regulatory capability. Implementing across-the-board regulation of fintech innovation; establishing risk firewalls between finance and tech.
- Consolidating and effectively cultivating fintech talent; continuing to drive the establishment of standardisation and rules systems; strengthening the implementation of legal and regulatory systems; navigating the stable and far-reaching progress of fintech.
