Huawei Eyes Digital Finance Expansion

Huawei is eyeing opportunities in digital finance to diversify its revenue mix amid ongoing U.S. sanction pressure against its smartphone and telecom equipment business.

Huawei is the latest major Chinese player to make an entry into the global digital finance market, eyeing growth opportunities from Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa where financial inclusiveness is underdeveloped.

Intelligent finance itself has a market valued at several hundreds of billions of dollars, but the potential is bigger because there will be cross-sector opportunities,» said Huawei’s global financial services business unit president Jason Cao in a report.

Digitalized financial services have already penetrated into various commercial fields, and a cross-industry, full-scenario eco-system can be built by us to serve the clients.

Huawei will look to leverage various capabilities, including facial recognition and big data technology, to develop innovative solutions.

It recently formed an alliance with 25 partners including software developers, fintech companies, and risk managers to create an ecosystem of digital financial solutions.

You do not just offer what financial firms demand in the new era, Cao said. The key to staying ahead is developing innovative scenario-based solutions.

Huawei will look to be less reliant on its smartphone and telecom equipment business amid ongoing pressure from U.S. sanctions such as export controls to cut access to high-end chip suppliers.

In addition, Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer and daughter of founder Ren Zheng Fei, is currently in a legal battle to fight extradition to the U.S. over accusations that she deceived HSBC to bypass sanctions against Iran.

Meng’s lawyers are scheduled this month to convince a Canada-based judge to allow them to rely on newly discovered evidence that supposedly proves that HSBC was aware of the sanctions risks. The evidence is believed to be sourced from documents in a recent agreement between Meng, Huawei and HSBC which resulted from a court ruling in Hong Kong.