Various

Over 300 Fintech Firms Worldwide Scaled in Hong Kong Thanks to Global Fast Track 2021

Over 300 fintech companies from 49 global economies have received support from Global Fast Track 2021, a business-driven programme at Hong Kong Fintech Week 2021. 89 top fintech firms were subsequently selected to further benefit from the programme.

Designed to help fintech companies from all over the world scale in Hong Kong and Asia, the programme consists of business matchings of fintech firms with corporates and investors, a pitching competition, regulators’ and mentors’ sessions, and a variety of soft landing programmes offered by the programme’s partners. Global Fast Track is led by Invest Hong Kong (InvestHK), and delivered by FINNOVASIA.

King Leung

“Global Fast Track truly reflects the value Hong Kong offers as a growing fintech hub. This year, over 90 Corporate and Investor Champions joined the programme, which were about 1.5 times more than last year. It showed the strong interest across fintech sub-sectors.

Fintech companies worldwide can access this one-stop-shop accelerator programme to build connections and fast-track their business success. InvestHK would like to thank the tremendous support from the public sector as well as all Champions from the business sector. We look forward to hearing more success stories very soon and congratulations to the winner and finalists of the pitch competition,”

said Mr. King Leung, Head of Fintech at InvestHK.

In 2021, Global Fast Tack recruited over 90 local and regional Corporate and Investor Champions, and received over 300 applications from fintech companies. 89 top fintech firms were invited to pitch to a panel of judges composed of various Corporates and Investors Champions.

The programme also facilitated more than 250 one-on-one business matching meetings among Fintech companies, corporates and investors. Four Hong Kong regulators – Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Insurance Authority, Securities and Futures Commission, and Customs and Excise Department rendered their supports to the fintech firms by providing one-on-one consultations.

This year’s programme was the most comprehensive one to date, bringing together several Hong Kong soft-landing support programmes into a single Global Fast Track scale-up offering.

They included JUMPSTARTER 2022 by Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund; Banking, Financial Services & Insurance Accelerator, Elevator Pitch Competition and Fast Track by Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP); and KPMG China Greater Bay Area FinTech Flying Fish Programme. Fintech companies also participated in other mentoring sessions on topics ranging from how to enter Hong Kong and Asian markets, to polishing their pitches and marketing plan.

Finalists of the Global Final Pitching Competition

11 fintech firms from sectors including Retail and Commercial Banking, InsurTech, RegTech and Payments, went into the Global Final of the Pitching Competition on 1st November, presenting to a panel of 14 esteemed judges. The winner of the competition was announced live at Hong Kong FinTech Week two days later, with Fano Labs from Hong Kong taking home the accolade. Fano Labs is one of the leading companies with artificial intelligence Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies which helps enterprises with customer services, compliance and other lines of businesses.

The other finalists include:

AiDA Technologies, Singapore (InsurTech)