Welcome to the first issue of the RegTech Association of Hong Kong Newsletter. Our goal in creating this channel is to keep our members informed and involved in the latest updates of the RegTech industry and our events. We hope you enjoy reading our newsletter and feel free to share it with your friends.

From the Chairman

RegTech is for now and the future.

The RegTech Association of Hong Kong (“RTAHK”) was formed as an independent and not-for-profit association in the final quarter of the year 2019. Our goal is to build Hong Kong into a leading hub of RegTech development, adoption and investment. We want to attract the best RegTech startups and talents to Hong Kong, as well as to encourage more local organisations to pilot and adopt RegTech solutions.

In 2019, the primary focus of the Association was to promote RegTech as it was a new concept for most people. Over the past year, with the generous support from our founding members and partners, we have successfully launched the city’s first RegTech ecosystem study ‘Hong Kong RegTech Map 2020’, and have supported and organised various events during the Hong Kong Fintech Week 2019 & 2020, Singapore FinTech Festival 2020, Asian Financial Forum 2021, amongst others.

Going forward, the RTAHK will continue to collaborate with the stakeholders in different RegTech ecosystems to further promote and strengthen market awareness and the understanding of RegTech in Hong Kong and beyond. Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to seeing you at our future events. 2021 will be a prosperous and successful year for the RTAHK and the RegTech industry.

Felix Cheung, Chairman

Editor’s Column

The RTAHK was formed and evolved in the fourth quarter of 2019. Looking back on 2020, the establishment of the RTAHK may have an iconic and foresightful meaning. This is because Hong Kong and the world have been deeply disrupted by COVID-19, in which all the governments around the world have been desperately saving the lives of their citizens while hoping to maintain the stability of their economies.

There were substantial changes in how people live and do business. For example, before COVID-19, face-to-face meeting was still a designated if not mandatory action for new customers opening bank accounts, even though mature technologies for remote customer identification and verification were readily available. Thanks to the practise of quarantine and social distancing, non-face-to-face remote account opening is now a commonly adopted option.

Nevertheless, even without taking COVID-19 into account, adoption of new technologies in various industries has been accelerated at an unignorable pace. Buzz words such as AI, blockchain, cloud computing and big data have been voiced and heard not just by technical people, but also by the general public. Whether people like it or not, this new normal has arrived and will stay.

The impact is substantial and far reaching in that new ways of doing things have been observed in many areas. Regulators and supervisors facing these changes have no choice but to take part in this technological evolution. Their responses are to speed up their own RegTech development as well as to encourage subjects being regulated to follow. A typical example is the HKMA announcement of the two-year roadmap in promoting RegTech adoption.

As for the RTAHK, it was the best of times.

Lawrence Yeung, Editor

2021 Event Highlights

Jan 14

Hong Kong RegTech Map 2020

Hong Kong’s regulatory technology (RegTech) industry has expanded around 10 times in the number of RegTech companies in recent 5 years…

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Nov 2-6

Hong Kong FinTech Week

Just like most of the conferences and seminars in 2020, Hong Kong FinTech Week, one of the spotlight events in Asia, had to go virtual…

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Nov 7 - 11

Singapore FinTech Festival

This year, the RTAHK decided to participate in the Singapore FinTech Festival as a Supporting Organization for the first time…

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Featured Articles

RegTech in the Eyes of the RTAHK

By founding members of RTAHK

It would be interesting to explore how all these founding members perceived about the evolvement of RegTech ecosystem around them. We have interviewed representatives from each founding member company…

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Featured Article: RegTech Industry as of Today

By Regtitude

Surveys show that there continues to be an appetite for RegTech within Asia. With the COVID-19 pandemic, financial firms have stepped up their engagement with digital regulatory compliance providers…

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Featured Article: Priming Hong Kong’s RegTech start-ups for global success

By Cyberport

As countries have tightened regulations of the financial industry and digital financial products proliferate around the world, RegTechs are flourishing in tandem. In advanced and developing economies alike, RegTechs are…

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