During his opening speech at the Hong Kong Fintech Week 2020, the city’s flagship fintech event, Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) Chief Executive Eddie Yue announced that the HKMA is exploring a new data strategy and considering building a new financial infrastructure called Commercial Data Interchange (CDI) to enable more efficient financial intermediation in the banking system, and to enhance financial inclusion in Hong Kong.

The CDI is a consent-based financial infrastructure that would enable more secure and efficient data flow between banks and sources of commercial data. It has the potential of solving long-standing pain points in SME financing by allowing SMEs to use their own data to enhance their access to financial services.

To study the technical feasibility of the CDI, the HKMA is conducting a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) study in collaboration with banks. The PoC focuses on using trade-related data to facilitate trade finance application process and is expected to be completed by the end of 2020.

The next phase of the study will begin in 2021 to cover other commercial data sources that could facilitate alternative credit scoring conducted by banks.

To develop the related technology for alternative credit scoring, the HKMA has separately commissioned the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) to study the use of artificial intelligence in SME loan applications; and published a white paper titled “Alternative Credit Scoring of Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises” today to deliver the findings.