The Hong Kong Polytechnic University's (PolyU) School of Accounting and Finance, in collaboration with AI investment trading start-up Asklora, has released the inaugural PolyU-Asklora Fintech Adoption Index (FAI), which is the first locally developed index to measure Hong Kong consumers' fintech adoption and impact.
The FAI surveyed over 1,000 Hong Kong residents in regard to their adoption of key fintech applications including virtual banking, mobile payments, online brokerage, digital insurance and cryptocurrency. The survey found online stock brokerage has the second-highest adoption rate among all the fintech applications but ranked second-lowest in terms of active usage rate. Conversely, digital insurance has the second-lowest adoption rate while scoring second-highest in active usage. The research also found that users of virtual banking services had a higher overall adoption rate of all kinds of fintech applications. For instance, 77% of them were users of online brokerage services.
The PolyU-Asklora project is led by Dr Jingran ZHAO, Associate Professor of the School of Accounting and Finance, Mr Jack POON, Professor of Practice from the same school and Mr Stephen Joon CHOI, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Asklora. Overall, the FAI was measured at 55, which captures both the proportion of respondents adopting fintech products and the spectrum of fintech services they adopted, with 51% of respondents identified as active fintech users. Furthermore, 85% of respondents reported being satisfied with their fintech solutions experience, while security was cited as their biggest concern.
Dr Jingran Zhao said, "The FAI survey results show that Hong Kong residents are keen to adopt fintech products, but fintech companies still have more work to do to convert these new users to active users by, for example, improving the security of their products."
Mr Jack Poon also remarked, "It takes two to tango. Financial institutions' fintech offerings, which is the supply-side, does not translate into true adoption until consumers use and benefit from the offering. The FAI measures demand-side adoption by surveying consumers. Understanding the consumer's adoption friction is an essential step to broadening financial inclusion in Hong Kong."
The FAI is a long-term research project to measure the evolution of Hong Kong fintech adoption through different events and market conditions, and will be released on a quarterly basis. The next release will be in December with an expanded scope and more participants achieved through online and offline surveys.
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