Hong Kong authority changes guidelines to boost fintech
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has changed its credit risk management guidelines in a bid to encourage more adoption of analytics when providing loans to smaller firms, finews.asia reports.
The initial guideline was issued in May 2018
HKMA’s ‘Banking Made Easy Initiative’ will boost fintech development, giving lenders the ability to use big data analysis to review and approve applications.
The initial guideline was issued in May 2018, originally limiting some types of lending by enforcing an across-the-board 10% limit applicable to all authorised institution’s (AIs) capital bases.
“Several AIs have since rolled out new retail credit products following the guidelines and the business has been operating smoothly,” says HKMA’s executive director of banking supervision, Raymond Chan.
The authority initially wanted the guideline to “minimise regulatory frictions”, which is why it has authorised AIs to set their own limits on fintech-driven decisions aided by technology.
Last week UK-based fintech Rapyd announced the inclusion of Hong Kong’s TNG Wallet to its payment options.
Rapyd’s Asia Pacific vice president Joel Yarbrough describes Hong Kong as “an incredibly vibrant small business market”.
Yarbrough adds: “We are giving large regional enterprises as well as local merchants opportunities to increase their revenue by enabling them to accept the locally-preferred payment methods used by consumers from anywhere around the world.”
