The financial authorities, banks, venture capitals (VCs) and IT companies got together to promote ‘FinTech ecosystem activation.’
On the 10th, Financial Services Commission (FSC) held the fourth ‘Field Talk for IT and Finance Convergence Promotion’ inside the head office of the Industrial Bank of Korea and discussed detailed execution plans for FinTech activation, such as regulatory paradigm shift and financial regulation improvement.
“For the FinTech industry to be activated, companies armed with advanced IT and innovative ideas must enter the field continuously,” said FSC Chairman Shin Je-yun. “The government will establish a FinTech support center in the near future and will provide one-stop service necessary in FinTech business establishment, such as administrative, legal, funding and consulting supports.”
“In the advanced countries where FinTech industry is developed, financial companies, rather than the government, are leading the establishment of FinTech ecosystem,” added Chairman Shin. He asked for financial companies’ active participation “The government can set up a big frame. However, it is the role of individual companies to make the frame desirable for all.”
Through a keynote presentation, Accenture Korea Digital Group CEO Lee Ji-eun said, “We must foster competent people and ally with them for joint growth.” CEO Lee emphasized, “We must look closely into what the purpose of FinTech we aim to achieve is and whether or not it is sustainable.” “Korea has a sense of obligation that it must constantly do something about FinTech,” continued CEO Lee. “ It is necessary for the financial sector to recognize the importance of FinTech and to discover differentiated business items that are suitable for Korea.”
“We plan to invest a fund of KRW 10 billion to support FinTech companies,” said the Industrial Bank of Korea Vice President Shi Seok-jung. “We will execute the budget of KRW 85 billion in supporting FinTech industry, KRW 10 billion in credit support for FinTech companies and KRW 5 billion in loans and equity investment for FinTech companies within this year.”
Shinhan Bank’s Vice President Yu Dong-wuk also said, “We plan to start a partnership program with which to commercialize the ideas of FinTech startups.” He added, “We will strengthen cooperation with not only domestic, but also global companies.”
The participating companies voiced in chorus that the major premise for FinTech activation is ‘deregulation.’
They claim that, although the banking sector has an active plan for financial and consulting support, security-related issues must be resolved first due to characteristics of the financial industry. These companies criticized that FinTech business cannot succeed unless security is guaranteed.
FinTech-based IT companies urged the government to swiftly improve on financial regulations, which obstruct commercialization of new ideas, by prohibiting compulsion of specific technologies and promoting passage of the cloud funding bill.
“We had prepared for a related business for over two years. However, our business expansion was blocked as cloud funding was not legislated,” said CEO Shin Hye-seong of WADIZ, a company providing cloud funding service. “Through cloud funding legislation, the government must take the lead in establishing an environment that enriches venture ecosystem.”
Forecasting that an ability of big data utilization will be a success factor for FinTech companies, VCs emphasized that not only domestic, but globally competitive success cases must be produced in the near future.
At the talk, the attendants discussed extensively about ‘support for FinTech activation using big data,’ ‘swift legislation of cloud funding act,’ ‘priority setting for FinTech policy,’ ‘establishment of a FinTech cluster,’ security industry fostering and security training reinforcement’ and ‘sharing of information for abnormal financial transactions and financial accidents.’