Dinis Guarda, author and founder of citiesabc.com, interviews Xiaochen Zhang, a leading global thought leader in the areas of fintech, sustainability, blockchain and economic digital transformation and founder of Fintech4Good.
Xiaochen Zhang is an active policy maker and technologist leading initiatives and organisations such as the major organisation FinTech4Good, as President, and co-Chair of World Digital Economy Council, among other organisations. Some of his global work aims to look at social impact, business empowerment, financial inclusion.
Interview focus
1. Background
2. Cultural background
3. Define Fintech
4. Fintech for Good
5. Fintech inclusion
6. Create commercial business models to empower policy makers, mainstream organisations, global companies and governments.
7. FinTech4Good
8. World Digital Economy Council
9. New business models related to economic digital innovation.
10. Gap between policy makers and innovators
11. Technology for doing good
12. Academic and education teaching
13. Programs for free for SMEs and learning models
Key Takeaways
· There are billions of people financially excluded. Fintech can optimise that process.
· Almost in all different verticals you need to make very clear that if we can put existing technology and apply it at full capacity almost all problems in that vertical and in that sector for instance can be solved. That is the power of the technology we actually have. With climate change for example, if we take all the renewable, recycling and all those related technologies and put them into practice, we will probably be able to tackle the problem for good.
· Leadership is the challenge. Create radical collaboration across states, frameworks and enable by the leaders.
· There is an ongoing struggle between traditional banks regulation versus fintech innovative players. We are also seeing new means of collaborative projects between them and both are learning quickly from each other.
· I created the World Digital Economy Council trying to bring leaders to discuss the challenges of a digital economy and bringing leaders to the table. Showcase what works. What we can find are solutions that work. Bring cases to convince mainstream players to look at these solutions. Importance of communication.
· The technology community, policy-makers and the enablers all need each other but sometimes they struggle to communicate and collaborate. These issues can come from any of those communities. Policy makers sometimes have their reserves about interacting with the private sector because they defend different visions. So when that happens we really need mutual brokers who are trusted by both sides to bring them together. That is the role of international development agencies that I am part of.
More Interviews
Xiaochen Zhang Biography
Xiaochen Zhang, President of FinTech4Good, co-Chair, World Digital Economy Council, UN ESCAP Sustainable Business Network (ESBN) Executive Council. He is also a member of the UN ESCAP Digital Economy Task Force and Green Business Task Force.
Listed as one of the Top 100 Blockchain Influencers by Lattice80, Xiaochen leads the design and implementation of FinTech4Goods’s strategy to introduce the most disruptive technological innovations in frontier markets. FinTech4Good was awarded the Best FinTech Impact Investing Network 2019 by Wealth & Finance International.
Xiaochen leads the design and implementation of FinTech4Goods’s strategy which aims to introduce impactful fintech and blockchain solutions to frontier markets through incubation, acceleration, and investment. He is a partner at Wemerge Capital, a Chairman of the Global Digital Economy Leadership Council, and serves on the Crowdfunding Professional Association Board of Director, member of the UN ESCAP Digital Economy Task Force and Green Business Task Force.
As a trusted figure in the digital economy and blockchain, he addressed 100+ high-level international forums as a keynote speaker and produced three blockchain and Fintech shows with 500K+ followers.
Prior to FinTech4Good, Xiaochen advised government agencies and multinational organizations on innovative finance, emerging technologies, and investment in positions at the World Bank, United Nations, and other international partnership platforms. He also taught entrepreneurship, innovative finance and blockchain courses at leading business schools.
He is also the founder of Blockchain Frontier Group, a co-chair of several blockchain labs, advisor of some leading blockchain start-ups, and a producer and host of the FinTech in China show and Blockchain Million Show.
He worked with many portfolio companies in launching new offers, entering into new markets and building transformative collaborative initiatives with the most reputable organizations from all over the world.
In the past 18 years, Xiaochen has built strong collaborations with government agencies, multinational organizations, and financial institutions through work with the World Bank, United Nations, Inter-American Development Bank, Astana International Finance Center, Israeli Blockchain Association, Crowdfunding Professional Association, DeFi Alliance, Prosperity Alliance, The Future of Sustainable Data for SDGs Alliance and many other international platforms.
He is also the host of the World Responsible Leaders Dialogue Show.
About FinTech4Good
FinTech4Good is a global network that through our investments, advisory, media, education program that we connect the blockchain startups with investors, with thought leaders and also with policy-makers. FinTech4Good’s overall mission is to help to scale 100 blockchain and fintech companies within two years and help them use their solutions to address global sustainability development goals.
Links and sources
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cmyidea/
https://www.crunchbase.com/person/xiaochen-zhang-2
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/luke-deer-xiaochen-zhang/the-fintech-in-china-show/e/52756764
https://twitter.com/ft4gxiaochen
https://www.responsiblebusiness.com/speakers/xiaochen-zhang/
https://www.responsiblebusiness.com/speakers/xiaochen-zhang/
Founder Dinis Guarda
IntelligentHQ Your New Business Network.
IntelligentHQ is a Business network and an expert source for finance, capital markets and intelligence for thousands of global business professionals, startups, and companies.
We exist at the point of intersection between technology, social media, finance and innovation.
IntelligentHQ leverages innovation and scale of social digital technology, analytics, news and distribution to create an unparalleled, full digital medium and social business network spectrum.
IntelligentHQ is working hard, to become a trusted, and indispensable source of business news and analytics, within financial services and its associated supply chains and ecosystems.
