Carol: Okay, welcome to P-FACTOR. Today we have Neil and Ralph from FinTech Association of Hong Kong to give us their perspective on the latest trends in the FinTech world. Welcome.
Neil: Thanks a lot.
Carol: Before we start, what about you guys? Give us the introduction of yourselves to our audience to make them know your background about what to do and what’s your experience. What about Neil, you started first?
Neil: Sure. So a little background on myself. I’m originally from the States, spin out in Hong Kong in China for quite some time. My background is inside of business, developing strategy, M&A, and also business development. So I’ve worked in financial services and HSBC as the head of digital partnerships and innovation. We’ve also worked at Deutsche Bank and as IBD TMT coverage banker, and then subsequently moved over to the Web3 space. So aside from being the chair of the FinTech Association, I’m also inside of the web three task force. So that’s run by financial secretary Paul Chan. And the third hat is really inside of a company called Tsunami Advisors. What we do is we’re a consulting and advisory firm to fintech and also web three space, how to grow and scale in Asia.
Carol: Oh, thank you, you must have a lot of things to say regarding the web3 environment. Raphael, What about you?
Raphael: Yeah, hello, Carol. Thanks for having us both here. So my name is Raphael Jansa, I am the general manager of the FinTech association. So I’m heading a team of four within the FinTech Association, and we defect around the association end to end. As in my role, as a general manager, I report them to the board, which Neil chairs and you know, we, from our perspective, we run multiple events, we collaborate with everybody within this FinTech ecosystem in Hong Kong and beyond. But also do a lot of policy work representing the FinTech view, on various subject matters towards the various regulators we have in Hong Kong. In a nutshell, that’s that my background has also been in banking. So I’ve been predominantly working in Transaction Banking and Treasury Departments, you know, across very a variety of front office roles over a 15-year span, and, you know, from Singapore to Germany to New York and Hong Kong, and then been working as a General Manager in my current roles for almost two years now.
Carol: That’s good. And since both of you have so many experiences in the FinTech, FinTech world, and not only Hong Kong, but the rest of the world as well. So my first question for both of you will be, what do you see as the FinTech landscape in Hong Kong or in Singapore or in Middle East? How do you compare? So first, let’s start with Hong Kong first, and then maybe share a bit of your opinion about, you know, what was Hong Kong’s difference?
Neil: Yeah, I mean, you know, maybe I can go first on this is basically Hong Kong, obviously, is an international financial center. So you know, we have like 4.5 trillion AUM assets under management inside of the jurisdiction. And ultimately, we’re also a very large capital market, seven out of the 10 years, since 21, we’ve been number one in IPOs, and so forth. So in that sense, you’re talking about deep, deep asset pool, you also have a lot of liquidity, also a lot of distribution inside of that space. So probably, from an IFC perspective, that’s where all the opportunity lies. And, of course, you know, when you talk about regulatory framework, it’s very robust. It’s International, as far as Asia is concerned, or globally as well. Right. So I think that’s probably number one. Number two is, is that if you look at the leveraging of different GPS, like artificial intelligence, machine learning on all those things, that’s really what drives the efficiency and, you know, lowering of the cost, and all those different things, the overhead and so forth. And then third, is really its ambition in Hong Kong is to become both a virtual assets Center as well as a web3 hub. So, you know, that’s been articulated, and now it’s time for execution. So we’re pushing very heavily inside of that space.
Raphael: Yeah, from my perspective, I would say, you know, Hong Kong and Singapore are both vying to be to be a financial hub whilst playing to their, to their regional strengths and finding its distinguished narrative. So Singapore being, you know, within ASEAN taking a lead the leading role there. Smart City with high level of digitization in both government and business where business world, they want to leverage on their perception of being a green city, and therefore push a lot into sustainability, green tech and ESG. But also a little bit, of course, into virtual assets, as we saw in the recent and recent regulations that are kind of that came out of Singapore. Now, Hong Kong, we, as Neil was alluding to, we are actually a traditional b2b, finance hub. And the FinTech world caters to that as well. We will probably touch a little bit on that later on. But Hong Kong as a b2b hub, you’re catering to both the international hub narrative as well as the connectivity to the mainland and the Greater Bay area in particular, and doubling down on what Neil mentioned with the web three and virtual asset. Industry, whilst at the same time virtual assets remain, you know, prohibited in mainland China, which is obviously very, very interesting and intriguing at the same time. So why am I saying this a little bit more and more in a broader sense is because very often, there’s questions we are receiving in terms of where does Hong Kong stand versus Singapore etc, right? And, but both places have actually it’s right to play, because it becomes very clear that both from a tread fire but also from a FinTech world, you can’t tap on the ASEAN market very well being based in Hong Kong. Likewise, being based in Singapore, in Malaysia, it’s hard to tap on Hong Kong and in GBA, and India is a whole different animal altogether. So in a sense that there is not a real one, you know, one location beats everything and represents the entirety of the region. I think there’s, there’s a couple of them will do that. And everybody finds its niche and sort of Singapore and so does Hong Kong eventually.
Carol: I see. And it’s interesting that you mentioned Hong Kong’s unique position in the GBA area, and I know you guys have recently hold an event in Schengen for for the association, and I would like to ask you, like for example, you can you guys compare a lot between Hong Kong and Singapore. What about Hong Kong and Shenzhen was there was these two cities especially what about Raphael?
Raphael: So again, you know, Hong Kong being known as a financial hub, traditional financial hub and, and Shenzhen being basically, you know, the tech center of China. So in FinTech, you can say if you keep it very, very simple, Hong Kong represents the fin. Shenzhen represents the tech, of course, it’s not really like that. It’s also going to banks and traditional finance insurance. No, obviously, we have a big FinTech community as well. But I think this is eventually from a perception where the where the we’re both strengths are. And, and I think both will play a major role in the entire Greater Bay Area construct. Now that market is obviously way much bigger, I think, with roughly, you know, 70 80 million people amongst, you know, the richest and wealthiest area in China. And in that sense, you know, what became interesting, which we also then saw a little bit of course, in the event we hosted in Shenzhen together with the Shenzhen FinTech Association last week is there’s a lot of tech companies in Shenzhen, but they barely look internationally. They look within China. And fair enough, it’s it’s a market of 1.2 billion people, right? You can make an argument, why would you need to look abroad? Fair enough. So whereas Hong Kong based companies always do not only focus on Hong Kong, the market is just too small, you always have an international angle or an angle into into into the mainland. So when we try to help build bridges there with the with the ecosystem, and hopefully also the businesses going,
Carol: I see, what do you think?
Neil: I think, you know, if we kind of look at it, you know, if, you know, not so much comparison, but I think it’s more of how do we complement each other? I think when we talked to the gentleman over in Shenzen FinTech Association, I think we look at it very complimentary in that sense, because, obviously, they look at Hong Kong and they’re saying, you know, you’re basically a springboard to international markets. And we look to Shenzhen and we like, Oh, you guys are springboard into GBA and also China. Right. So I think it’s very complimentary from that perspective. I think that’s number one. Number two is that they are a little bit different in terms of their business model, because you know, we’re a pure play Association we’re completely membership base. And you know, over there they have of course, they have the an association, but then they also have incubator kind of combined together. And so what they try to do is incubate different companies there and then grow them just like you know, whether you say Cyberport, whether you talk about HKSTP, very similar but they combine those different types of businesses, right. So That’s a little bit different. So, so their way of raising that sort of next gen Fintech is a little bit more centralized, a little bit more concentrated. And then they also have government backing to do that. We’re completely membership based. And the 90 people that we brought, they’re completely willing to spend their own money to do that. Right. So they see the opportunity of that market, right. So it’s, it’s quite different.
Carol: Okay, so another thing that you guys mentioned spravato mentioned earlier than us, they say, you say Hong Kong, Hong Kong, in terms of FinTech Hong Kong is more thing than tech. What, then I have the next question for you guys is, what do you think about the five feet of the FinTech adoption? Among all those Hong Kong financial institutions? And what what kind of trends that you see these days? What about Neil, you start first?
Neil: You mean, as far as the different incubation…?
Carol: Banks or financial institutions, how is their adoption of FinTech, especially the cutting-edge technology part?
Neil: I don’t think even like the average consumer adopts cutting edge very quickly. I mean, when the iPhone came out, everybody’s like, Oh, I don’t know, some people bought it. And some people didn’t, because it was like, wow, that thing is really expensive, right? No, I mean, I’m not saying I’m just saying in general, like, when you talk about technology adoption, it’s not doesn’t matter if it’s Hong Kong, London, New York, adoption rates are very different from when you like, you know, the early adopters versus fast followers, and so on and so forth. Right. But I would say, you know, I think especially inside of a regulated space, of course, there’s going to be caution, could they go faster, of course, you could go faster, right, but then, you know, at least you’re moving in a proper direction. I think a lot of the trade fi they have like innovation teams and partnership teams, they have different types of labs that are trying to test this type of technology out. And ultimately, it’s up to those fintechs to demonstrate that they can improve the performance of those banks, right. It could be the improvement of bringing in new customers or new clients, it could be reducing the fraud rate, it could be, you know, how do you approve loans faster, but you have to show with that incremental improvement with your technology. Right. Without that articulation or the demonstration of that sort of capability set, I think it’s very difficult for them to adopt. And I probably wouldn’t adopt it either. Because if it’s not any better than what I can do now, are significantly better than, you know, I might just kind of be okay with my existing systems. Right.
Carol: Okay, what do you think?
Raphael: Yeah, I think so, we, I look at FinTech adoption a little bit from a traditional finance perspective and a non traditional finance perspective. So in a non traditional finance perspective, we’ve seen in Hong Kong what we saw elsewhere, you know, b2c and b2b, b2b, b2c platforms, e commerce solutions, looking for and adopting embedded finance solutions. And I’m sure you guys from Payment Asia know a thing or two about that. And likewise, embedded insurance solutions, you know, insurance as you go, or micro insurance solutions that are embedded in whatever you’re purchasing or selling online. I think that is that is that we’ve seen it in Hong Kong as we’ve seen it in other parts of the world as well, when it comes to the retail adoption. I think you know, it depends who you ask on the street. You know, what, what we take as a as a proxy is very often like the poly use a FinTech adoption survey. So they run which is something we we support from a FinTech Association as well they run a quarterly survey amongst a group of representative people in Hong Kong, about their adoption FinTech and of course, you know, you see obviously here as well. Differences in from from a generational perspective. Yeah, and I but I would say, from what I’ve seen so far is it is not different from other parts in the world. And so of course, the older generations have a little bit of less of adoption of that, compared to the younger generations when it comes more and more into more and more intuitive. Now in the tradfi world, again, because Hong Kong being a b2b market. Well, from what we see in if I look amongst our members, as well as the FinTech ecosystem, which we, by the way, consider we have around 500 fintechs in Hong Kong, where we are issuing a report very soon about about the ecosystem here in Hong Kong. Of course, we see a lot of traction and adoption for risk management solutions in the b2b space. Okay, so when I say risk management, I mean rec tech solutions, I mean, cybersecurity solutions, of course, you know, finding hybrid or cloud-based business models. So, in that sense, the adoption rate is relatively high, which is also backed by an HKMA study that came out in 2022. That’s clear. Also, of course, with the trend towards sustainability and the trend to green tech and ESG a lot of companies that are offering services on, you know, data aggregation that helps with credit scores or in general internal ESG scores. They have a, they have a ball, so to say, you know, because everybody is asking for services around that. Equally, though, obviously also from our members that are great efforts and banking as a service solution platforms that are highly, highly coveted. And of course, we have tech solutions as it as you may imagine, but when you see all the things I’ve mentioned, from cybersecurity, rec tech, Bas wealthtech, it’s all pretty much b2b, a little bit b2c, but it’s very often a b2b adoption. Equally, though, to give a different perspective, as well, we you will also hear quite a bit of FinTech say, Yeah, I’m based in Hong Kong. I have some clients or partners here. But actually, the vast majority of my clients are outside of Hong Kong. Yeah, actually, quite so and and I think this is something we’ve all been been hearing here and there, everybody has something here in Hong Kong, but actually a lot of business outside as well. And maybe even more than then based here in Hong Kong. And then you you know, you look at the, for example, at the very very recent report that came out by the HKMA just last month. Which I think is called Building Bridges, where they look at actually the adoption rate or what really what can they what can what can be done to improve that. They say, basically, all regulators and this goes beyond the HKMA remain committed to fostering more widespread adoption throughout the industry. So, by saying that, you can tell that there’s still room to grow and room of improvement overall, from a perception perspective. And then, in that report, as well, they point out three key focus areas InsurTech, GreenTec, wealthtech. You know, you can argue, you know, there could be more or could be different ones, but I think this is where they argued, so, if they point out those three, they already say, this is probably where the adoption rate, you know, is over can be even faster, even more, or that’s where they see their their key to Hong Kong. So wealthtech, of course, in the concept of, of the wealth connect scheme within the GBA. Hong Kong’s aspiration to be a risk management insurance hub, obviously, is then catered to, by their, by their focus on on onshore tech solutions, as well. So I think I would paint a picture of it is good, but can can it be better? Yes, it can. From an adoption perspective,
Carol: Then follow up on that, I would ask you as FinTech association of Hong Kong, what kind of things would you do to speed up this process?
Neil: To speed up the process, I think, you know, the things that we focusing on is being the super connector inside of the whole ecosystem. So that means, you know, working with all the different constituents inside of it to try to connect them right. So you talk about the incumbents, like the banks, insurers, financial institutions, connecting them with the different fintechs. And then connecting also with accelerators, incubators, as well as some of the universities and so forth. And the idea is with that connectivity, they are able to conduct a new business, right. So business could be new clients, could be new partners, new vendors, that type of thing. And ultimately drive for different POCs, or it’s a different test and learn type opportunities for those people. What really is a sort of like a goal is to contribute to the greater good of the whole ecosystem. And then also, if you said, you know, right now, Hong Kong is somewhere around 20 different unicorns, only five of those unicorns are actually in FinTech. So if you’re saying that, you know, you’re an international financial center, 4.5 trillion in USD AUM, you’re also in the capital markets. I mean, I think we can make it a lot more than five. Right. So I think this is kind of the idea of what we try to do is to connect it, of course, overarching, is also the policy and advocacy side. So how do we help to facilitate a market competitive advantage for Hong Kong? So when we look at the different consultations from HKMA and SFC and so forth, what we want to look at, is using a lens of competition, and also commercialization. So, of course, you know, inside of the certain guard rails, but then how can Hong Kong compete, you know, not against any specific area, but how do we compete to get those different users get those different platforms and get that AUM into the marketplace? Right? Because it is an international center. So you know, you have to look at other jurisdictions and and compete as well. So and everybody’s doing the same thing. I think there’s plenty of room for growth. It’s not you know, you win, I lose kind of thing. But yeah, that’s The ones that we’re looking at it from perspective wise.
Carol: I see. Thank you. And also, one thing that you constantly mentioned when we’re talking about the new industry, we have three, obviously, as you both of you mentioned before is another important area that Hong Kong is focusing right now. And we know, token 2049 is happening right now, and may ask, what are the trends you see in this web three, or we say, crypto world? How do you? Where do you think it’s going? Maybe this is a question for you and Neil?
Neil: Well, yeah, if you kind of look at the macro environment, of course, when you talk about digital assets, I mean, the market has corrected from like 3 trillion to 1 trillion, somewhere around there. On TV, hell for Defi has dropped significantly, so on and so forth. So, you know, I think market correction is there. I mean, that happens doesn’t matter if it’s in web three or trade fi, but Hong Kong Government has articulated its goal to become a virtual asset hub, and also a web three center. And that was in October of last year at the FinTech week. And they subsequently issued a consultation in March, and then started to issue licenses in June, for virtual asset trading platforms. And that opens it up outside of what they already had was institutional and professional investor licenses, opens it up for retail, and then they’ve already uplifted OSL. And also Hashkey, yeah, and then at the same time, given a license in principle to HKVEX, or virtual asset exchange. So there’s three players that are already out there. And they’re moving in that direction. On the web, three front, they said that they want to become a web 3 hub. And what that means is, you know, web 3 could mean a lot of different things to different people, right? So, but they established a task force, I’m one of the 15 members inside of the task force. And essentially, this task force, well established by John Lee, is essentially run by Paul Chan, the financial secretary. So when they talk about one three, it’s specifically for financial services, right? So how to make the innovation and advancements in the financial services using left web 3. And so in that context, there’s a lot of different initiatives that are pushing inside of that space. Whether you’re talking about CBDCs, or eHKD, or eRMB, or stablecoin, consultation is also there. But the purpose of the web 3 Task Force is to really create a game plan going forward of how web three develops inside of this marketplace. And even if you kind of look at that, there’s going to be different streams inside of it, and different types of development, but all is driven inside of financial services at the outset. And then it will go out beyond that into different product sets into different feature sets, and so forth, right? So stable coins will probably be the first stop, because that’s a basic ingredient for people to let’s say, go from Fiat, to stable to some other asset.
Carol: Do you think they’re gonna roll out the license for stable coin very soon? What do you think?
Neil: Oh, they’ve already they already had the consultation for stable coins. So that’s going to be coming out fairly soon. So. But yeah, so if you don’t have that stable coin, there, you can actually take Fiat to get into web 3. Yeah. So of course, there’s different ways to do that, but you know, in a regulated way, but, but yeah, so that’s really what the guidepost is and then how to develop it in a more systematic fashion. Right, going forward.
Carol: I see. I see. Okay, so speaking of system Masselli going forward, I think this here comes the question of, what do you guys see in the future? Like what will be system masculine going forward? And what is the the most the thing that is most likely to happen in the near future? What about Raphael you start ?
Raphael: Yeah, look into the crystal ball. Right. So the I think there’s a there’s probably an overall view and then there’s one for Hong Kong. If I may, I think overall I think we’re still in the infancy of AI usage, I think across all all segments, but if you keep it in the, in the in the in the in the financial and the FinTech world I think once we cut through all the hype with with chatGBT I think if I stay in a little bit like closer to the to the payments world, I think that AI will, you know, or help to org completely organize prioritize payment instructions, reconciliation, working capital management, even cash flow forecasting for corporates and advice. I think We’re only a few years away from this actually happening. And I’m talking AI, I’m not talking robot robotic processing automation. Right. So that is there’s a clear difference in that. So I really think we’re making strides in that. And a couple of years, we will see that happening. I’m also looking at quantum computing and see it’s to leverage that power from from transform risk management and fraud detection. And in a real time scenario. I’m also you know, just talking talking on crypto, you know, so for me, the question is still, can we use crypto? Is crypto still owning an asset? Or can we use it as a means of payment? But if you use it as a means of payment, is it? Is it in its shape right now catering to that? Or do we need something like something as an example with the Lightning Network as a layer to to, to actually make it more efficient, faster, and, and so um, I also think will be something along those lines. And then you just mentioned stable coins. That’s kind of the bridge into that I look at I look at CBDCs rollout and stable coins a little bit in parallel. Not that I want to really compare them, but I think they both in, you know, try to segue into new ways of, of transacting. I think we will see more than and what I would like to see is actually cross jurisdictional users usage of QR codes, you know, particularly in the b2c environment, right. So so there’s other parts. And if I was to segue a little bit now into what Hong Kong in the Hong Kong world is, we see in other parts of Asia, this is already happening. So some countries in the ASEAN world are working actually on this. Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, I think, more robust. Exactly. So they work on the annual if they work on that it tells you technically it’s possible. Yeah. So you know, and I think Something similar would be great. In the GBA construct, or even just in general with Mainland China and Hong Kong as a start, that we can use, you know, a combined standard of QR codes that we can we can leverage on. So I think this is something I would like to see. We touched on the GBA for Hong Kong. Now, the GBA is a great idea. But the the problem it has right now, it’s jurisdictional framework is not 100%. Clear. Okay, we look at we look at three jurisdictions with mainland Macau and Hong Kong. And it’s not perfectly clear which jurisdiction applies and what if what which businesses in what in what part. And that needs to be given from a top down perspective first, in order to let actually the the GBA construct flourish. And that is something that we need. I would also, I would also like to see a final finally a full rollout of the open banking API framework in Hong Kong. I think we are behind the curve there and therefore not able to maximize what what an open banking or even an open insurance framework may bring to the table. And then otherwise, just a little bit more also continuous execution on what the HKMA FinTech 2025 strategy comprises, you know, on the talent side on policies funding. All banks core fintech. So I think more and more, right. So I think all these clubs together would be would be a great, great way for for Hong Kong going forward.
Carol: I see. Personally, I agree with you on the QR code one because me I’m a little bit also, I’m a little bit tired of carrying cash all around to pay for pay for my stuff, while in the mainland, or most most countries in Southeast Asia, you just get the E wallet and scan the QR code is so much faster. Okay, what about your new What do you think about the future? What is the next trend that you see might happen very soon?
Neil: I think, you know, of course, the whole virtual assets base. That’s a big one. Of course, all the web three is happening as well. I think there’s a strategy that’s been put in place by Hong Kong, as far as the task force is concerned is is like, you know, how do we develop this inside of us financial institutions, and financial services? I think how web three develops is actually through the three different Cornerstone pieces of Hong Kong. One is inside of the IFC itself. So we already talked about the the Aum that’s inside of there, sort of like the capital markets in terms of liquidity and also distribution, right. So those things are huge advantages for anyone that’s kind of operating inside of this space, right. The second piece is is talking about arts and culture. So in in web 3, a lot of the value is in content creation. And so when you talk about content creation, it’s, you know, let’s say even if you talk about Korea, Korea’s Kpop, right, I mean, they have BTS and all that stuff. So it’s, it’s great. Yeah, like Blackpink and everybody loves it. And but that’s all content, right? Whether it’s music, whether it’s images, whether it’s video, so on and so forth. The other thing like Japan, also the same thing, I mean, they have all the different video games, Pokemon, etc. And so, you know, that is a huge component for Hong Kong as well, because Hong Kong and traditionally has been also a very key contributor inside of film inside of cinema, like all the Hong Kong movies and those different things. But at the same time, you know, on Kowloon West, you’ve got those different museums that have been built. So you have M+, that’s there. You also have the National Palace, or the Palace Museum that’s there. So you have like modern art, and also classical art, right. So those are the content cornerstones for the future commercialization of arts and culture, right. And the third thing that Hong Kong has to leverage is, you know, we have both public and also private support inside of web 3. So that means everything that Cyberport does are HKSTP from us, you know, startup incubation program type approach, then you also have folks like ourselves, and also InvestHK, which are encouraging different companies to land in Hong Kong and develop them. Even though they’re international. They’re still homegrown to us, right. But last, but not least, I think is key is we have inside of web3, a global champion in Hong Kong called Animoca Brands. And they have somewhere around 300, 350 Different portfolio companies in web 3. So, you know, we’re definitely going to be able to leverage that capability set to develop the private support to take a leadership position inside of web3. So, really, number one, IFC number two is arts and culture. And number three is the public and private support that we expect, and to drive this development inside of web three as a future for Hong Kong.
Carol: Thank you very much. So one last question for both of you, if you want to, like, if I asked you guys to describe in one sentence, what is the focus for FinTech Association, Hong Kong for next year? 2025?
Raphael: Well, 2025 would be in two years time. So…The correct answer would be the board will decide this, what will be the roadmap. But I think, you know, if I look at this year to last year, and then going forward, is last year, we still were about half of the year almost impacted by by by COVID restrictions, ever since hopefully, Hong Kong has been opening up. So our did our activities, we were now able to do mission trips to the to the UAE, we went in May we went to Abu Dhabi and Dubai, looked at the ecosystem, they’re connected there, met the regulators. And we did change it now. And we plan to do this more in the next year as well. So to actually play the super connector role that Neil was alluding to, both in Hong Kong and abroad, of course, with focuses in Hong Kong, but still, you know, have that connectivity in the region and beyond. And, you know, continuous shooting, stay on path continue to, to collaborate with, with whoever is representing the ecosystem, be the university is be the government bodies be at the incubators be the private side. And I think more of the same and continue to also let the fintechs the fintechs view heard in public consultations with the regulators. Clearly I didn’t say it in one sentence, but I think this is this is where we’re heading to.
Carol: Okay, anything to add?
Neil: You know, I don’t know, some sort of semblance of like, you know, Think global act, local kind of thing. But I think, ultimately, what we want to do is be able to outreach both inside of China, right. So I think, whether it’s inside of GBA or whether it’s even going further north into Beijing or Shanghai, where the different types of technology can be accessed. As far as markets are concerned, obviously, China is a very big one. And it’s very important to a lot of our constituents. But, you know, looking globally, I think what we do need to do is have that global outreach, you know, whether it’s Dubai, whether we’re doing Singapore, we do plan to also expand out into UK as well. So UK FinTech week, and potentially others, like the US or others, right. But you can go into conversation of what is the role even of Hong Kong, and Hong Kong has traditionally played as a gateway to China, or an inner access point for China to access international? What is the role of Hong Kong? Right? And how do we continue to support that agenda? Right? Because even if you look at the travel itineraries of John Lee, talking about Paul Chan, where do they go? They go to Southeast Asia, they go to Dubai, they go to they sign an MOU in Saudi? Yeah, they don’t sign an MOU, like, you know, so, yeah, this is where the money comes in. So yeah, well, I that’s your you said and I didn’t say, Well, you understand, what I’m saying is, is that you just fall there. You know, it’s like, people are tracking Elon Musk plane, right? Where’s he going? The same thing you do? Like, okay, where’s John Lee going? Or Where’s Paul chan going is like they’re going to certain markets for a reason, right? And so I think in that sense, we support that agenda, because we are the FinTech Association, and, yeah, and how we can support as being the scoop superconductor in there. They did also go into I mean, to be fair, they also, they did quite a number of different trips into Beijing, but I think that’s because they have to go and you know, make some different, you know, legislative decisions and things like that. They did do some trips into GBA. So they went to Dongguan, they went to Zhuhai they went to Guangzhou. But, you know, do we want to cover those? Are those tech centers? Probably not. I mean, you probably say, you know, I’d rather go to Beijing. I think Beijing is definitely a center. Shanghai is definitely a Center for Technology. Right. So I think we have to look at it with that type of lens. It’s like, what’s the agenda top-down agenda as far as for Hong Kong in and of itself, and how does that FinTech Association support that both on the outbound to outreach to international markets and also how to work domestically inside of China right.
Carol: Okay very much looking forward to global expansion. Thank you guys for coming into our office thank you for joining the podcast.