Although major financial institutions are increasing their attention and investment in financial technology, while financial technology brings huge development opportunities to the financial industry, it also faces many challenges. Among them, the shortage of financial technology talents Shortage has become a fundamental issue in the development of the industry.
Zhu Min, dean of the National Institute of Financial Research at Tsinghua University, said at the recently held 2019 Tsinghua PBC Global Financial Forum that talent is the most significant challenge currently facing the development of financial technology.
Financial institutions move towards technology war
In his speech at the 2019 Tsinghua PBC Global Financial Forum, Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, said that financial technology is developing rapidly in China and is in a leading position in the world. Nowadays, all financial technology companies have formed partnerships with large and medium-sized banks. Other banks are also vigorously developing financial technology and carrying out all-round cooperation with technology companies in fund raising, account opening, payment settlement, inclusive finance, etc. Learning from each other's strengths and weaknesses, the effect is very significant.
In fact, whether it is self-built or cooperated with a third party, it is undeniable that financial technology has become the next "battlefield" for financial institutions, and institutions have generally increased their investment in financial technology. .
Data from the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission show that last year, banks’ total investment in technology increased by 13% year-on-year, and information technology personnel increased by nearly 10% year-on-year. Doubled, the proportion of technical personnel in some private Internet banks exceeds 35.
Li Dan, deputy director of the Statistical Information and Risk Monitoring Department of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, recently publicly stated that currently major banking institutions have established information technology management committees, and more than half of banking institutions have set up CIOs (chief information officers). .
At the same time, according to statistics, since the establishment of Industrial Bank in 2015, which kicked off the domestic banking fintech subsidiaries, 9 bank fintech subsidiaries have been established, including 5 This month, ICBC Technology, a subsidiary of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and Beijing Bank Financial Technology, a subsidiary of the Bank of Beijing, were unveiled and opened.
According to a report released by the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute in September last year, it is optimistically estimated that China’s financial technology banking application market will reach 24.5 billion yuan in 2020. From 2020 to 2025, the market size of financial technology banking applications will be greatly affected by factors such as regulation and technological development. A conservative estimate is that the market size of financial technology banking applications in 2025 will be 31.3 billion yuan, and an optimistic estimate is that the market size will be 49.3 billion yuan.
In the insurance industry, although there is no specific industry investment data, the emphasis on financial technology can be seen from the 2018 annual reports of several listed insurance companies.
For example, China Life regards "Technology China Life" as its important development strategy; China Pacific Insurance has added two new "chief" positions, one of which is chief technology officer; and this year it changed its logo from Ping An of China, which changed its "insurance bank investment" to "financial technology", has made technology an important business segment, and it invests 1% of its annual income in technology research and development. Data shows that Ping An currently has 99,000 financial technology and medical technology business employees and 29,000 R&D personnel. As of December 31, 2018, Ping An's number of technology patent applications increased by 9,021 from the beginning of the year, reaching a total of 12,051, ranking among the top among international financial institutions.
Financial technology talent shortage
Although major financial institutions are trying their best to embrace the technology wave, a major reality that lies ahead is the shortage of financial technology talents.
The "2018 China Fintech Employment Report" released by Michael Page (China), an international manpower recruitment company, in July last year showed that 92% of the surveyed practitioners predicted that the future prospects of the Fintech industry are bright. We believe that high-quality talent is a key factor in driving the continued success of this industry. However, 92% of the fintech companies surveyed found that China is currently facing a serious shortage of fintech professionals.
Statistics from the "2017 China Salary and Employment Report" previously released by the agency show that the current total domestic financial technology talent gap reaches 1.5 million.
"In fact, I think the number of 1.5 million may still seriously underestimate the actual talent gap. Because these 1.5 million are actually recruited through various recruitment channels, but if we add some The potential talent demand for small and medium-sized banking institutions in third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities will far exceed 1.5 million people, so we believe that this gap is very large, and the key is that the supply is very small.” Official Wang Xiaoyuan said.
Qiu Han told this newspaper that the talent shortage in financial technology is not only a Chinese problem, but a global problem, but the scarcity characteristics of each region are slightly different.
She gave an example. For example, in the United States, financial institutions have been digitizing earlier, especially in the retail banking sector. Therefore, big data talents are relatively abundant among all the talents in short supply in financial technology. However, China’s retail banking sector is relatively mature. Banks have begun to explode in recent years, so big data talents are relatively scarce. But in terms of artificial intelligence, although the artificial intelligence technology in the United States is advanced, its application in the financial industry is not particularly deep due to various factors such as privacy; while China's data accumulation is very fast, coupled with the development of the mobile Internet, making Artificial intelligence is being used in financial institutions relatively quickly, so China has more practical AI talents in the financial industry than the United States. However, related majors were opened earlier in American universities, so there are more basic talents than China.
It is understood that Chinese universities have begun to focus on cultivating financial technology talents in the past two years. Dozens of universities such as Tsinghua University, Peking University, University of Science and Technology of China, Shanghai Jiaotong University, and Nanjing University have successively opened financial technology or artificial intelligence courses. Intelligence and other related colleges or majors. Companies with a huge talent gap obviously can't wait for college graduates in a few years. OneConnect has chosen to team up with quantitative hedge fund Two Sigma and the world-famous Wharton School of Business to launch a short-term, high-intensity training program for "Financial Technology Rising Stars" , directly providing practical talents to itself and external financial institutions; Ping An Bank chose to directly invest its financial technology talents overseas, and held talent recruitment fairs directly in Silicon Valley and New York in the middle of last year.