Players in Hong Kong’s green fintech space should focus on increasing their integration with multiple sectors to enhance their ability to serve the real economy, industry experts said at a summit.
Green fintech is “not as narrow as it looks”, Jason Tu, founder and CEO of MioTech, a Hong Kong-based provider of sustainability data and solutions, said during the Hong Kong Green Fintech Summit on Tuesday.
While green fintech companies focus on providing technology that supports analysis and reporting on environment, social and governance issues and related subjects, “it’s not only about finance, or asset management”, he said during a panel discussion. “It has a much broader scope. Because finance is the first sector that needs to adopt sustainability, it will eventually push all these requirements onto the real economy.”
For green technologies to thrive in Hong Kong, green fintech players must look beyond the financial sector and the compliance market, and figure out how to integrate with many different sectors, said Rocky Tung, director and head of policy research for the Financial Services Development Council.
“This is where the opportunities are,” he said.
The city is home to around 1,000 fintech companies, a number that grew by 25 per cent in 2023, Joseph Chan Ho-lim, the under secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, said at the opening of the summit.
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Hong Kong, a city with ambitions of becoming a hub for green technology and environmental finance, is pushing ahead with its efforts to deliver products and solutions to domestic and international markets, as demand grows exponentially.
The Green Fintech Summit is one of a series of sustainability-themed discussions, exhibitions and events taking place during Hong Kong Green Week, which began on Monday and is expected to attract some 5,000 attendees from dozens of jurisdictions.
A prototype of the Hong Kong Green FinTech Map, which outlines the city’s current landscape of green fintech companies and their services, will be unveiled on March 1.
Hong Kong well-suited to lead region in green technology development: Paul Chan
Hong Kong well-suited to lead region in green technology development: Paul Chan
In 2022, the total amount of green and sustainable bonds issued in Hong Kong topped the region, accounting for 35 per cent of the Asian market. Including both bonds and loans, the total amount of green and sustainable debt issued in Hong Kong in 2022 increased more than 40 per cent year on year to US$80.5 billion.