Chen Shengqiang, CEO of JD Finance, speaks at the Inaugural China Fintech Conference 2016 in Beijing, July 10, 2016. (Photo Provided to chinadaily.com.cn)
Chen Shengqiang, CEO of JD Finance, said on a keynote speech at the event that he disagrees with Wikipedia's definition of fintech as fintech companies do not necessarily need to be startups, nor need to disintermediate incumbent financial systems or challenge traditional corporations that are less reliant on software.
He said he believed there will be large fintech companies in the future and they should capture more businesses that traditional corporations could not do or do at high costs.
Chen cited equity crowd-funding business as an example as traditional institutions could not tap this area as they lack internet connections with startups and investors and, not to say, build an eco-system to serve them.
Baidu Vice-President Zhang Xuyang, who had worked in traditional wealth management sector for more than 10 years before joining the internet giant, said Baidu mainly exports its technologies through its artificial intelligence platform Baidu Brain.
Zhang said the company, which responds to 6 billion search inquires each day, could do more to match investment portfolios with investors with appropriate risk preferences via its technologies including big data analysis.
