Connecting Data: Establishing Hong Kong as a Cross-Boundary Financial Data Hub
9 Dec 2022
The financial services industry has become increasingly digitalised, with cross-border transactions continuing to grow significantly and data connectivity being an imminent business need globally. Similarly, within the Greater Bay Area (GBA), cross-boundary flow of data is crucial for the further integration and connectivity of the financial services industry. A coordinated governance framework and standard is key to facilitate data flow between Hong Kong and the rest of the GBA cities, and to address operational challenges and compliance uncertainties to businesses operating across multiple jurisdictions. Hong Kong, being the international financial centre (IFC) of Asia and already possessing robust information and communications technology infrastructure and innovation capabilities, has what it takes to become the financial data hub of the GBA to facilitate a frictionless flow of data within the region.
To this end, the Financial Services Development Council (FSDC) formed a Working Group consisting of industry experts to conduct a study with the aim of identifying challenges facing Hong Kong’s financial services industry in data governance and putting forward recommendations to address them. We believe these recommendations will help establish Hong Kong as the financial data hub of the GBA, and thereby strengthen Hong Kong’s status as an international financial centre.