The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has approved the first batch of digital banking licenses for Standard Chartered, a Bank of China subsidiary and online insurer ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance; China’s biggest fintech firms, Tencent and Alibaba’s Ant Financial, were not yet approved which came as a surprise to some; the HKMA said an additional 5 licenses were being considered and more announcements will be coming soon; “This is the best thing to happen to Hong Kong fintech in many years,” said James Lloyd, head of fintech at EY in Hong Kong, to the FT. “The combination of banks and non-banks allows for the creation for genuinely new types of products.” Source.
