The FinTech Conference of the 2026 Financial Street Forum Annual Conference, themed “Intelligence-Driven, Integrated and Coexisting — FinTech amid the New Form of Intelligent Economy”, opened in Beijing on October 20. Relevant officials from the People’s Bank of China, the State Administration of Financial Regulation, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and the People’s Government of Beijing Municipality delivered addresses, elaborating on the roadmap for the next stage on seizing opportunities brought by artificial intelligence (AI) and advancing high-quality and smarter FinTech development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

Zhu Hexin, Deputy Governor of the People’s Bank of China and Administrator of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, stated in his address that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, China will seize the historic opportunities of AI development, take the digital and intelligent transformation of finance as the main line, steadily deepen the “AI Plus” initiative, advance the “Data Factor ×” campaign in a secure and orderly manner, and push FinTech toward innovative and intelligent growth.

Zhu Hexin highlighted four priorities: pursuing intelligence-driven development to realize mutual empowerment between AI and finance; building a solid data foundation to accelerate value unlocking of financial data elements; maintaining controllable risks to erect a security firewall for new technology applications; and following standards-oriented development to elevate the sound and innovative development of FinTech.

Xiao Yuanqi, Vice Chairman of the State Administration of Financial Regulation, noted in his address that “AI plus finance” is not a simple technological superposition, but a systemic transformation covering strategy, business, business models, organizational processes and corporate culture. Financial institutions need to boost independent research and development and consolidate three foundational capabilities: data, models and engineering.

Xiao Yuanqi called for industrial-financial collaboration to build an ecosystem, peer cooperation for outcome sharing, and international coordination to improve governance. The application of AI in finance requires a sound governance framework, the “human-in-the-loop” principle, beneficial and responsible AI, guaranteed data and cybersecurity as well as business continuity. Meanwhile, the digital and intelligent transformation of regulation shall be pushed forward, and AI governance shall be incorporated into the full-cycle management system to ensure safe and controllable application.

Liu Haoling, Vice Chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), said in his address that to enable high-quality development of the capital market through AI, development and security must be well balanced. Risks shall not be overlooked merely for technological dividends, nor shall progress be halted over risks.

Liu Haoling stressed the need to improve the comprehensive governance system and establish full-lifecycle management covering access assessment, dynamic monitoring and emergency response. It is vital to actively explore an AI governance approach suited to the realities of China’s capital market, scientifically define the boundaries of high-value application scenarios and risk tolerance thresholds, and develop a credibility assessment framework tailored to business needs. Efforts should also be made to align with national AI development strategies and strengthen coordination with industry players and research institutes to pool strengths.

Sun Shuo, Vice Mayor of Beijing, remarked in his address that, leveraging its positioning as an international center for scientific and technological innovation and a national financial management center, Beijing is developing a national-level FinTech demonstration zone with high standards and advancing deep integration of “finance + technology + data”, bringing together diverse innovation factors in the FinTech and Innovation District at an accelerated pace.

Sun Shuo said that standing at the new starting point of the 15th Five-Year Plan, Beijing will focus on three areas: empowering the real economy with technology to scale up application scenarios for large language models, privacy-preserving computing and other technologies; improving inclusive elderly care services via digital means, optimizing credit approval models, refining monitoring and evaluation mechanisms for elderly-care finance, and advancing age-friendly transformation of financial services; and safeguarding development security through institutional arrangements, expanding regulatory sandbox pilots, strengthening algorithm governance and full-lifecycle data security management, so as to strike a dynamic balance between financial innovation and risk prevention.

Source: Shanghai Securities News