Hong Kong's FinTech Growth Index for 2019-20 grew by 52.9% compared with its base period from April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019, which represents an optimistic outlook by partnered companies. It can be attributed to policies and measures which act as accelerators to foster a positive impact on the industry's development.
The anticipated growth of business performance, indicated by FinTech customer adoption rate grew by 113% as compared with the 2018-19 financial year, representing an optimistic outlook of the business development by the companies.
The business environment, measured by both internal and external factors on FinTech business operations and development, grew by a modest 5% in the same period. Although there is a positive effect of the internal factors by the companies in terms of funding and other capital allocations, it has been cancelled off by the relatively lower average rating on external factors such as investment environment, government policy and regulations.
Investment on R&D or product development, measured by the anticipated percentage change between 2019-20 financial year and the base period, grew moderately by 48.4%, mainly on areas including AI, big data and machines/deep learning (55.3%), followed by Blockchain (42.3%) and Customer experience (39.5%).
Demand on Talents, measured by the anticipated percentage change between 2019-20 financial year and the base period, grew moderately by 45.3%. On the required skills for new employees, Programming skills (68.4%) are the most preferable skills for new hires, followed by Marketing expertise (47.4%) and Knowledge of machine/deep learning and AI (42.1%)
Business Performance
Business Performance
This is to mainly measure acquisition rate of FinTech companies in Hong Kong.
Sub-index Value
Present: 152.1
Expected: 176.6
Business Performance sub-index, measured by FinTech customer adoption rate and revenue, has risen by 6.1% since the previous year. It also has the highest expected growth rate (16.1%) out of the 4 sub-indices. This indicates that current FinTech businesses are optimistic with regards to their performance, which might be due to the belief that the Hong Kong economy will soon recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The fact that COVID-19 has motivated the development of technology solutions could also have led to such an uptrend. According to the survey, WealthTech, E-payment and digital banking, as well as Blockchain and Cryptocurrency sectors have the largest contribution to the increase of this sub-index.
Other Results
According to the results of the questionnaire survey, nearly half of the top 10 companies with the highest revenue growth belong to the wealth technology industry (the percentage change in revenue from financial technology solutions or services). Possible factors include increased industry demand and good business strategies to promote the success of start-ups.
