China to Step Up Fintech Regulation

The People’s Bank of China will introduce new standards in 17 areas, including blockchain, cloud services and artificial intelligence.

China has plans to step up regulation in 17 areas of fintech to «guide the application of new technologies» applied across the financial industry, according to an article published by state news portal Xinhua.

Speaking at the 2019 working conference of the National Financial Standardization Technical Committee on Wednesday, Fan Yifei, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, said the introduction of new standards is urgently needed to fill shortcomings in key areas, with a particular focus on data security, the publication reported.

Fan noted that China currently has 65 national financial standards and 252 financial industry standards, which include mobile financial payment client technical specifications, voiceprint identification and more, but financial services and management standards are still weak.

Explaining the rationale behind the regulatory push, Fan said that high-quality financial development requires high-quality financial standards.

He also highlighted the need to expedite the internationalization of financial standards, actively carry out financial standardization research, cultivate a new generation of regulators savvy in this field, and to use fintech regulation to modernize financial governance systems and governance capabilities, the report said.

China recently passed a new law on cryptography aimed to facilitate development concurrently with the country’s central banking efforts to launch its own digital currency, which will be effective January 1, 2020.