FinTech Association of Hong Kong Appoints its First Board of Directors

The FinTech Association of Hong Kong has appointed its first board of directors with Mr. Henri Arslanian appointed as its Chairman. This comes as the Association expands its activities in representing the Hong Kong FinTech community at home and overseas.

The Association had been run by a temporary board of volunteers since its launch in June 2017. The new board members will serve for a two-year term, renewable once. They come from across the local community, representing the diversity of FinTech in Hong Kong in gender, stakeholder grouping and background. Together, they will guide the development of the Association and oversee the activities of its committees.

Since its launch, the Association has attracted over 800 members from more than 150 firms, and over 1,500 people have attended one of its events. Its 12 committees have held over 60 meetings, resulting in activities including the publication of a paper on Best Practices in Token Sales and participating in HKMA’s New Era of Smart Banking initiative. The Association has also been a supporting partner at over 15 external events, including Hong Kong FinTech Week and the ASIFMA Annual Conference.

Henri Arslanian, newly appointed Chairman of the FinTech Association of Hong Kong, said,

“Hong Kong has tremendous FinTech potential and the FinTech Association of Hong Kong is fully committed to bringing together the various elements of the ecosystem to ensure we not only achieve our goals but also surpass them.”

Over the course of 2018, it plans to continue organising activities that link to its three main goals:

Advocate – create the unified voice for the Hong Kong FinTech ecosystem
Collaborate – bring together the diverse parts of the community
Educate – learn from existing leaders and nurture the next generation of talent

These will include launching a blockchain knowledge club, publishing a white paper on privacy and security concerns in payments, and making a formal response to HKMA’s Open API initiative. The Association will also be adding two new committees, (a) China Greater Bay Fintech Committee & (b) Cybersecurity Committee.