On December 18th, the Harvard Center Shanghai hosted LUN Partners Group’s 2020 FinTech Roundtable event “Digital Financial Innovations: The World in Comparison to China” , with two exciting roundtable discussion topics “Democratization of Investment Products and Solutions Through Innovation” and “Innovation and Evolution of Global Mobile Payment”.
The event was hosted by the Former Managing Director of Harvard Center Shanghai, Mr. Jing Huang, and featured the virtual participation of several overseas FinTech companies, including the US’s Unicorn Shares Trading Platform SharesPost, APAC’s Leading Digital Wealth Management Solution Quantifeed, Japan’s QR-code Payments Aggregation Platform Netstars, Brazil’s Mobile Payment Wallet Provider RecargaPay, and Continental Africa’s Foremost Mobile Money Connectivity Hub MFS Africa. Other featured panelists of the event included Mr. David Sun, Senior Vice President of Cathay Financial Holdings, Ms. Chung Yung Chan, Founder & CEO of Rongyi Group, Professor Michael Sung, Co-Director of Fudan Fanhai FinTech Research Center, Mr. Shun Zhu, Chairman of Yiwu China & Africa Business Council, Mr. Shujun Huang, Founder & Chairman of Shanghai Gaudi Culture Media Partnership, and Mr. Cao Wei, President of Shanghai FES. The event was broadcast in both English and Chinese to Harvard alumni and global audiences through virtual webinar that allowed attendees at the Harvard Center to converse freely to the featured speakers and participants online.
During the first roundtable “Democratization of Investment Products and Solutions Through Innovation”, Mr. Greg Brogger, Founder of SharesPost, introduced the Unicorn Shares Trading Platform’s operating model, pre-IPO liquidity solutions for early stage investors and management teams, and unique opportunities for accredited investors to participate in top unicorn private companies through platform transactions. Mr. Alex Ypsilanti, Founder & CEO of Quantifeed, introduced his company’s Digital Wealth Management Solution and how it empowers traditional financial institutions to provide personalized and goal-oriented digital wealth management services to their customers. Following the initial introductions, featured panelists and the Harvard Center audience discussed in-depth a series of topics such as “How Chinese financial institutions can learn and innovate by referencing these featured businesses” and “Whether Chinese investors are able to participate in unicorn share transactions”.
During the second roundtable “Innovation and Evolution of Global Mobile Payment”, Mr. Tsuyoshi Ri, Founder of Netstars, shared his view on the rise of cashless payments in Japan during the pandemic and introduced the Payments Aggregation Solution, StarPay, which has aggregated numerous payment providers into a single payment collection solution for thousands of merchants in Japan. Mr. Bobby Aitkenhead, Key Investor of Recargapay, introduced the Brazilian mobile payment market as well as the offered solutions and business model of Recargapay’s mobile payment wallet. Mr. Dare Okoudjou, Founder of MFS Africa, introduced the state of the mobile payments landscape in Africa, his mission and vision for MFS Africa’s money transfer & remittance hub, and his company’s business model and future development plans. Both roundtable participants at the Harvard Center and online engaged in discussions on “How mobile payments can solve pain points associated with China-Africa trade & commerce of consumer retail products”, “How to bring China’s more developed value-added merchant services ecosystem to overseas markets”, and “How overseas payments companies can accelerate their growth by learning from China’s mobile payment experience”.
The event’s topics and discussions were largely based on the “time machine” investment theory, whereby innovations and lessons learned from more advanced and developed markets can be applied to markets that are still under development. Event participants focused on how China’s asset management industry can accelerate its development by referencing successful cases and cutting-edge innovations from overseas asset management markets; Or, used China’s own mobile payments market as an example of a validated success story and applied its principles of success to emerging mobile payment markets in Japan, South America, and Africa. LUN Partners Group has been committed to the “time machine” investment theory and building a bridge between China and foreign markets. By investing in overseas FinTech companies and introducing their cutting-edge technologies and innovative business models into China, while exporting China’s proven technologies and business models to emerging markets, LUN promotes collaborative development among its portfolio companies to create a FinTech ecosystem.