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China willing to cooperate on digital financial rule making, central bank’s Yi Gang says
- Financial services should be conducted by licensed companies
- Technology firms offering financial services must adopt ‘same business, same rules’ approach
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China is willing to participate in international rule making around the digitalisation of financial services to prevent anticompetitive behaviour and increase data protection for consumers, according to its top central banker.
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Cooperation is needed to mitigate regulatory arbitrage between jurisdictions and to lower cross-border contagion from financial risks, Yi Gang, governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), said at the Bank of International Settlements’ “Regulating Big Tech Conference”.
“In the era of the digital economy, the integration between finance and technology is a global trend,” Yi said in a pre-recorded speech. “As technology for good is an intrinsic requirement, how to enhance innovation capacity while preventing negative effects of fintechs is a common challenge faced by us all.”
Yi’s speech comes as Beijing is clamping down on monopolistic behaviour in the country’s high-flying technology sector, calling for greater protection around personal data and pushing China’s Big Tech companies, such as Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings’ WeChat Pay, to open up their “walled gardens” to competition.
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As part of their higher scrutiny on the technology industry, Chinese regulators have announced plans to rein in the use of algorithms, crack down on celebrity gossip and financial misinformation online, and restrict gaming by children.
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That includes implementing sweeping changes to add additional oversight on companies that hold the data of 1 million or more Chinese persons and want to pursue listings in foreign capital markets and banning private tutoring, which had upended the country’s edtech sector.
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