Bank of China to expand its fintech innovation regulatory pilot project to six more cities

• Bank of China will be expanding its fintech innovation regulatory pilot project to six more cities and districts. 
• In 2019, the bank had launched the project in Beijing. 
• According to the bank, regulated fintech innovation projects will protect the rights of consumers.

In 2019, the Bank of China had launched its first fintech innovation regulatory pilot project in Beijing. The bank has recently announced that it is explaining the pilot project to six more districts and cities, including Shanghai, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Hebei Xiong’an New District, Hangzhou and Suzhou.

According to the bank, fintech innovation projects under regulation will protect the rights of consumers. Additionally, it will also help small businesses get through financial difficulties during the pandemic. The bank said:

We are aiming to amid the pandemic situation and help enterprises to resume work and production.

Last year, the bank released “The Fintech Development Plan (2019-2021)” right after the Central Economic Work Conference. It outlined “the guidance ideology, basic principles, development targets, key missions and guarantee mechanisms” for fintech work over the course of three years. 

An excerpt from the plan reads:

The Plan pro­poses that by 2021 China es­tab­lish and im­prove the “four beams and eight pil­lars” for Chi­na’s fin­tech de­vel­op­ment, which in­cludes […]Ac­cel­er­at­ing the draft­ing of ba­sic reg­u­la­tory rules, mon­i­tor­ing analy­sis and as­sess­ment work; ex­plor­ing fin­tech in­no­va­tion reg­u­la­tory mech­a­nisms and com­pre­hen­sive fi­nan­cial sta­tis­tics; strength­en­ing the spe­cial­i­sa­tion, uni­fi­ca­tion and com­pre­hen­sive­ness of fi­nan­cial reg­u­la­tion.