Tencent and Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) have banded together to form a joint innovation lab, named the SZE – Tencent Financial Technology Joint Laboratory.

The lab will focus in what they call “financial sci-tech”, and devote its existence to jointly promote innovation research, promotion and application of financial sci-tech projects. Sci-tech here simply refers to the union between science and technology, and financial sci-tech likely relates to fintech offerings.

The two parties expressed specific intentions towards big data and cloud computing. The goal is to guide the development trend of fintech in the region, and to discover business application needs of the securities and futures industry.

The new Tencent and SZSE launch could be the Greater Bay Area’s answer to a Shanghai-launched innovation board which will focus on companies in high-tech and emerging sectors—though the new venture is focused on finance, whereas Shanghai’s innovation board is said to look at information technology, equipment, new materials, energy and biomedicine.

In recent years, SZSE has invested into the R&D and application of new technologies. In December 2017, SZSE officially established the Financial Technology Research and Development Center of the Securities and Futures Industry in  Shenzhen, and has organized and cooperated with institutions in and out of the industry to carry out joint pre-research, development, application and promotion of major projects related to fintech.

The establishment of the lab with Tencent is meant to contribute to the innovation capabilities of the aforementioned research center, and to strengthen cooperation with fintechs. Eventually, SZSE wants to create an interconnected ecosystem for the securities and futures industry.

Featured image credit: SZSE