As a technology-driven financial innovation, FinTech has been developing rapidly in recent years and has become an important living water for the development of the financial industry, while the Greater Bay Area of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau has unique location advantages and great development prospects, and has great potential in the development of FinTech. At the recently held Pearl Bay Finance Summit (2023), a number of guests offered their views on the development of fintech in the Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau Greater Bay Area.

"The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has obvious location advantages, not only being the frontline of China's reform and opening up, but also the highland of China's technological innovation, with China's and even world-class technology head companies located in the Greater Bay Area, driving technological innovation and application in financial institutions." Zhou Yanli, former Vice Chairman of the CIRC, said that from the perspective of the technological development of financial institutions in the Greater Bay Area, the basic conditions of financial technology, intellectual support, resource environment and the number of technology companies are at a leading level in the country, therefore, financial institutions in the region have an important role in the country's vigorous development of the digital economy, and the mission of financial technology innovation and development also falls on the financial technology companies in the region.

Tu Guangshao, former executive vice mayor of Shanghai, said that the digital transformation of financial institutions, including the development of fintech, has brought important changes to the entire financial system. To break through the bottlenecks in the digital transformation of small and medium-sized financial institutions in the development process, large financial institutions can play a role. Promoting the export of solutions from large financial institutions and their technology subsidiaries to small and medium-sized financial institutions requires the establishment of cooperation mechanisms, thus providing advisory services, building digital platforms and establishing digital ecosystems, etc. The Greater Bay Area, as the highland of China's financial development, is also the place where fintech is developing the fastest. Through the efforts of all parties, it is fully capable of building the highland of fintech while creating a Greater Bay Area sample of digital transformation for small and medium-sized financial institutions.

"The Outline of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Development Plan clearly supports Nansha in building a demonstration zone for comprehensive cooperation among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, and accelerating the construction of a bearing area for international shipping, financial and technological innovation functions in the Greater Bay Area, of which building an important platform for financial services is one of the important tasks for Nansha, requiring efforts to develop shipping finance, technology finance, aircraft and ship leasing and other special finance. " Lin Shao Li, chief economist of Guangzhou Nansha Development Zone Administrative Committee, said that in recent years, Nansha has accelerated the digital transformation of finance, promoted the deep integration and development of finance and technology, created a financial technology ecosystem, expanded financial technology application scenarios, and gradually enhanced the competitiveness of financial technology, and the leading effect of innovation has begun to emerge.

Data show that by the end of 2022, Nansha District had opened a total of 176,000 digital RMB wallets by participating pilot financial institutions and landed 3,300 digital RMB payment scenarios; explored building a Nansha financial risk prevention and control system to monitor nearly 180,000 enterprises in Guangzhou; established Guangzhou's first National Financial + Industry Innovation Centre in conjunction with globally renowned incubators to explore the creation of a financial technology innovation incubation A number of key projects of financial technology enterprises in the region have been selected as national, provincial and municipal financial technology pilots or cases; the Pearl Financial Innovation Cluster has been built, and a number of high-quality insurance technology and information technology enterprises have been introduced to Nansha, creating a model building economy with a tax revenue of over A model of building economy with a tax revenue of over $2.3 billion.

At the summit, the "Opportunities, Challenges and Prospects for the Development of Digital Finance in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") was released. The Report is the result of a research project conducted by the China Institute of Financial Studies (CIFS). According to the Report, the Greater Bay Area also has outstanding fintech development practices, which can be summarised as "three ups and three downs": expanding service scale, increasing business efficiency and improving user experience, reducing operational costs, controlling business risks and reducing manual contact. However, at the same time, there is a mismatch between financial innovation and real economic development in the Greater Bay Area, and there is a mismatch between financial development and innovative enterprises. Manufacturing is the largest industry in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, accounting for 33% of the regional GDP, the highest among the world's four largest bay areas. However, the production model of the manufacturing industry in the Greater Bay Area is still relatively traditional, and the problem of "big but not strong" is more prominent, and financial support is urgently needed for transformation and upgrading.

In the future, the Report believes that the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area can support technological innovation on the basis of promoting inclusive finance, effectively compensate for the shortcomings of the traditional financial system in resolving information asymmetry, and alleviate the financing difficulties of technological innovation enterprises. Promote industrial finance on the basis of developing consumer finance, reshape the industrial internet, and realise the digital upgrading, transformation and reengineering of all elements upstream and downstream of the industrial digital chain. Expand cross-border connectivity on the basis of developing domestic business, which can be specifically developed from three perspectives: technology, currency and system.