Notice of the General Office of Shanghai Municipal Peoples Government on Issuing the Implementation Plan for Accelerating the Construction of Shanghai Financial Technology Center

SMPG GO D〔2020〕No.1

Attention:All district peoples governments, and commissions, offices, bureaus of the Municipal People’s Government, and relevant units:

With the approval of the Municipal People’s Government, we hereby issue the Implementation Plan for Accelerating the Construction of Shanghai Financial Technology Center to you and require you to implement it conscientiously.

 General Office of Shanghai Municipal Peoples Government

                                                          January 8,2020　　

          Implementation Plan for Accelerating the Construction of   Shanghai Financial Technology Center

Constructing Shanghai Financial Technology Center as a new connotation of further advancing the construction of Shanghai International Financial Center in the new era is an important focus for implementing the national strategy and promoting the joint development of Shanghai International Financial Center and the Science and Technology Innovation Center. In order to accelerate the construction of Shanghai Financial Technology Center, this Implementation Plan is formulated in accordance with the spirit of the Shanghai International Financial Center Construction Action Plan (2018-2020) and the Financial Technology Development Plan (2019-2021).

I. Guiding Ideology

Guided by Xi Jinpings ideology of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, fully implement the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress and the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Plenary Sessions of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China；as required by accelerating the construction of “Five Centers” in Shanghai, making fully well-known the “Four Brands” and striving to intensify the Four Major Functions, firmly grasp the opportunity of the new round of scientific and technological revolution, give full play to the advantages of a complete financial market system, a sound financial institution system, and a solid scientific research foundation in Shanghai, accelerate the construction of Shanghai Financial and Technology Center and provide strong support to build Shanghai into a socialist modern international metropolis.

II. Basic Principles

1. Adhere to science and technology empowerment and joint development. Rely on technological innovation to improve the efficiency of financial services, raise the level of financial services, and enhance the core competitiveness of financial enterprises. With financial application as the lead, demand as the guide, promote scientific and technological innovation, and promote the joint development of finance and technology.

2. Adhere to all-benefit and inclusiveness and serving entities. Clarify the development direction of financial technology, improve the all-benefit and inclusiveness of finance, effectively ensure that different groups have equal access to safe, convenient, high-quality and efficient financial services, and continue to increase financial innovations support for the real economy and peoples livelihood.

3. Adhere to market operation and government guidance. Stimulate the innovation vitality of market players, form a market-driven endogenous drive, give play to government guided service functions, and create a good environment for innovation and development. Encourage diversified cooperation and increase effective financial supply.

4. Adhere to integrity and innovation, and controllable safety. Establish a stable development concept, adhere to the bottom line of scientific and technological ethics, and balance the relationship between innovative development and controllable safety. Strengthen the use of supervision technology, innovate supervision methods, strengthen the protection of financial consumer rights and interests, and maintain financial stability.

III．Development Goals

Strive to spend 5 years to build Shanghai into a financial technology R & D highland, innovative application highland, industrial congregation highland, talent pooling highland, standard formation highland and regulatory innovation test area, and build Shanghai into a globally competitive financial technology center.

—Technological achievements constantly emerge. Strengthen the tackling of key emerging technology R & D problems in the fields of big data, artificial intelligence, block-chain, 5G, and quantum computing, support the theoretical research of basic technologies in the fields of chips, algorithms, and cloud computing, and promote the development and utilization of cutting-edge technologies in the forefront of the world to provide inexhaustible motivation for driving financial innovation.

—The financial technology application takes the lead internationally. Give play to the advantages of Shanghais strong financial industry foundation, rich application scenarios, and abundant data resources, promote the world-leading technology application level of about 20 financial markets and headquarters-based financial institutions, making financial technology a new engine that serves the real economy and promotes the high-quality development of the financial industry.

—Congregational development of financial technology industry. Through policy guidance, improvement of supporting facilities and optimization of the layout, cultivate about 20 leading financial technology companies with international reputation and influence, build a sound financial technology ecosystem, and promote the joint development of the construction of the international financial center and the science and technology innovation center.

—Financial technology talents aspire to gather. Intensify the training and introduction of financial technology talents, improve the supporting mechanism for innovation and entrepreneurship, optimize the living environment of talents, and build Shanghai into an "attractive city” and a “place of first choice" of interchange and confluence for global financial technology talents.

—Effective cultivation of financial technology standards. Strengthen the application of financial technology in the financial industry, cultivate about 50 innovative projects that are highly innovative, widely applicable, and good in demonstration, promote the formation of a number of Shanghai standards for technological and business innovation, and contribute to the development of global financial technology Shanghai power.

— Pilot projects on regulatory innovation are at the forefront. According to the top-level design of financial technology supervision, conduct the pilot innovation supervision in Shanghai. Further improve the coordinated supervision of the Yangtze River Delta, and gradually promote the unification of financial technology supervision standards in the Yangtze River Delta. Establish and improve financial technology risk prevention mechanisms and strengthen the protection of consumer (investor) rights and interests.

IV. Key Tasks

1. Promoting the R & D of key technologies in financial technology at full speed

(1) Strengthen the R & D and innovation of emerging technologies. Focus on financial innovation needs, actively promote the in-depth research and development of emerging technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, block-chain, and 5G. Support artificial intelligence enterprises to develop scenario applications and key technological breakthroughs in the financial field. Promote research and performance testing of the underlying and cutting-edge technology of the block-chain with independent intellectual property rights, and promote the innovation of key block-chain technologies suitable for the financial field. Actively support the establishment of a financial technology company in Shanghai by the Digital Currency Research Institute of the Peoples Bank of China. Encourage the R & D of technologies such as smart contracts, distributed storage, and biometrics that serve asset management, credit financing, and supply-chain finance.

(2) Deepen the research and development of basic technologies. Focusing on key links such as chips, algorithms, servers, network communications, and cloud computing, support scientific research institutions and leading financial technology enterprises to continue to promote the development of relevant basic technologies and products. Focus on supporting emerging mobile Internet technologies, virtualization technologies, encryption technologies, high-density low-power new servers, secure and reliable operating systems, and platform software to improve the basic technology support capabilities of financial products, financial services, and financial regulatory innovation.

(3) Build efficient and reliable infrastructure. Coordinate the layout of a secure, stable, and efficient information infrastructure to provide stable and sufficient computing and storage resources for the operation of financial technology core business systems. Actively strive for the landing of major national financial technology projects and platforms in Shanghai. Vigorously promote the construction of the financial data centers and the cloud service platform to better meet the needs of new financial services such as high concurrency, multi-frequency, and high traffic.

2. Comprehensively improve the level of financial technology application

(4) Improve capabilities of financial technology serving the real economy. Use technological innovation to further enrich financial supply, improve the efficiency of financial resource allocation, help the healthy and sustainable development of the real economy, and enhance the sense of acquisition and satisfaction with financial services in the field of peoples livelihood. Comprehensively promote the pilot financial technology applications, and promote the innovation of comprehensive financial services such as smart small and micro tax payment quick loans, trade finance smart review systems, long-term insurance smart settlement services, and big data green agriculture. Explore new application paths for new technologies in channel expansion, operating models, product services, risk management and control, and inclusive finance, and spread industry-based, overall experiences and practices.

(5) Continue to deepen the application of technology in financial markets. Carry out financial technology application upgrades around key links such as asset transactions, payment clearing, registration and custody, and transaction supervision. Use scientific and technological means to enhance the efficiency of the exchanges standard warehouse receipt trading platform and deepen functions of the futures market to serve the real economy. Use block-chain technology to accelerate the digital construction of the entire bill transaction process. Use data valuation, high-performance computing and other technologies to promote the issuance, clearing and settlement of bond financing support tools for private enterprises. Establish a new generation batch processing platform for securities registration and settlement business. Give play to the role of regulatory science and technology to improve the effectiveness of the listing review, market supervision, and supervision of listed companies in science and innovation boards.

(6) Continuously optimize various payment and settlement services. Continuously improve the technological application level of the Cross-border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) and improve the RMB internationalization infrastructure. Encourage innovations such as biometric payments, smart wearable device payments, and integrated bank card services to promote the deep integration of financial payments with this Municipality’s industrial chain and service chain. Explore the breaking of barriers to foreigners using mobile payment tools.

(7) Vigorously promote the construction of smart banks. With support by technologies such as biometrics, intelligent voice interaction and context awareness, promote the construction of smart banks. Strengthen the construction of a financial credit system that enables social credit, continuously improve corporate credit processes and credit evaluation models, and alleviate information asymmetry in banking and corporate information. Encourage banking institutions to carry out financial innovation in the field of peoples livelihood based on new technologies, and use scientific and technological means such as password identification, private computing, and remote account opening to improve the availability, convenience, and security of financial services.

（8）Vigorously develop intelligent investment management services. Support asset management institutions to explore the use of artificial intelligence, big data, knowledge maps and other technologies to accurately identify and analyze investor risk tolerance and return targets to meet the needs of differentiated asset allocation. Encourage asset management institutions to increase investment and promote the application of smart contracts, data tags, natural language processing and other technologies in transactions, risk control, customer service, etc., to further improve service processes and improve service efficiency.

（9）Further promote the innovation of insurance products and services. Support insurance institutions to use the Internet of Things, machine learning and other technologies to increase the depth and density of insurance and the level of inclusive insurance. Use big data to help the development of insurance business and build an integrated health insurance service industry development platform of Internet medical health insurance. Encourage the exploration of the innovative application of block-chain technology in the insurance industry, and promote the innovation of service processes and models in the links of insurance accepting, underwriting, loss determination and claims settlement.

3. All factors promote the congregation of financial technology industries

（10）Speed up the formation of financial technology enterprise clusters. Vigorously attract financial institutions and large-scale science technology enterprises to set up financial technology subsidiaries and R & D centers, and open innovation platforms in Shanghai. Support multi-party construction of various financial technology laboratories, incubators and accelerators. Carry out cross-border financial technology innovation cooperation and jointly tackle key common technical problems. Attract financial technology enterprises in different sub-sectors to gather and develop in Shanghai, and improve and enrich this Municipality’s financial technology institution system.

(11) Promote the development of financial technology industry alliances and professional think tanks. Give full play to the role of industry alliances in the industrial ecological chain, and promote long-term, comprehensive, and in-depth cooperation among various members to achieve resource sharing and complementary advantages. Study the establishment of a financial technology industry expert advisory committee to provide intellectual support for the strategic planning, major policies and reforms of this Municipality’s financial technology industry development.

(12) Cultivate and introduce high-end financial technology talents. Support the construction of financial science-related disciplines and specialties in Shanghai universities, and increase the training of high-quality, composite talents. Establish and improve a talent training mechanism that combines production, education and research, and school-enterprise collaboration. Attract domestic and foreign high-end financial technology talents to Shanghai for development, and facilitate the application of senior managers and core backbones for residence permits and talent apartments. Bring the financial technology enterprises registered in the Lingang New Area of the Pilot Free Trade Pilot Zone into key talent introduction institutions after recommendation by relevant departments. The qualified talents in urgent need of these enterprises can be settled directly, and the personal income tax balance of high-end and scarce overseas talents can be given subsidies.

(13) Establish a supporting service system for the financial technology industry. Strengthen comprehensive public services for financial technology enterprises in this Municipality, and provide convenient services for various qualifications recognition, patent applications and trademark registrations of financial technology enterprises. Guide various service agencies to provide professional services for financial audit, credit evaluation, legal consultation, financing docking, entrepreneurship counseling, and market promotion of financial technology enterprises.

(14) Optimize the strategic spatial layout of financial technology. Take advantage of the concentration of financial and scientific and technological resources in key areas of this Municipality, endeavor to optimize the spatial layout of the "two towns, one belt, and one port" to form an agglomeration state of Shanghais financial technology industry that leads breakthrough on the point and makes joint development from point to surface. Two Towns refers to the construction of a financial technology application demonstration town and a core technology innovation town relying on Lujiazui Financial Town and Zhangjiang Science Town, respectively. One Belt refers to the construction of a financial technology application demonstration belt based on Yangpu Riverside, the North Bund, the Bund Financial Cluster, and Xuhui Riverside. One Port refers to the establishment of a financial technology innovation experimental port relying on the Lingang New Area of the Pilot Free Trade Zone.

4. Promoting Pilot Financial Technology Supervision and Innovation

(15) Actively explore innovation in financial technology supervision. Give full play to the advantages of the Pilot Free Trade Pilot Zone and Lingang New Area to try first, and carry out pilot innovation in financial technology supervision. Support the Peoples Bank of China to organize trials to improve the supervision of payment and settlement in Shanghai, promote the construction of the Shanghai Center for off-site supervision systems in the payment field across the country, and support the financial technology research center to become larger and stronger.

(16) Further improve the coordinated supervision of the Yangtze River Delta. Under the framework of basic rules of the national financial technology supervision, gradually promote the harmonization of financial technology supervision standards in the Yangtze River Delta region. Study and establish a financial technology coordinated supervision mechanism in the Yangtze River Delta to promote normalization and institutionalization of regional cooperation. Promote the sharing of financial technology supervision information in the Yangtze River Delta region, and strengthen joint supervision and coordinated disposal of cross-regional financial technology risks.

(17) Establish financial technology risk prevention mechanisms. Establish a Chinese financial market transaction report database in Shanghai to centrally integrate transaction information in various financial markets and improve financial market monitoring. Implement the financial information security protection system and strengthen the full life-cycle security protection of financial information. Establish risk prevention mechanisms for the application of new technologies in the financial field, fully evaluate the potential risks of new technology and business integration, and improve mechanisms of risk compensation, such as risk provision funds and insurance plans.

(18) Strengthen the protection of financial consumers (investors) rights and interests. Establish and improve the protection mechanisms of consumers rights and interests adapted to the development of financial technology, conscientiously implement the investor suitability system, guide market entities to standardize the provision of financial technology products and services, improve consumer (investor) complaint handling procedures, strengthen supervision and inspection in accordance with the law, and effectively protect legitimate rights and interests of financial consumers (investors).

5. Creating a first-class financial technology development environment in all aspects

(19) Launch an international brand of Shanghai financial technology. Further deepen the exchanges and cooperation between Shanghai and financial technology centers at home and abroad. Hold a global financial technology summit and exhibition in Shanghai each year, and establish a financial technology display platform in Lujiazui Financial Town. Encourage events such as the Interbank Market Financial Technology Innovation Contest to be held in Shanghai. Bring into play the leading effect of Shanghai City Innovation Financial Technology International Industrial Park, encourage enterprises in Zhangjiang High-tech Zone and Zizhu Science and Technology Park to actively expand their international layout and explore new models of international financial technology innovation and cooperation.

(20) Cultivate financial technology standards. In the Shanghai Financial Innovation Award, add a selection of financial technology projects to increase the recognition and promotion of outstanding financial technology projects. Encourage financial technology enterprises in this Municipality to deeply participate in the relevant work of the National Financial Standardization Technical Committee, strengthen exchanges with international organizations such as the Financial Services Technical Committee of the International Organization for Standardization, and increase Shanghais influence in the formation, revision, and promotion of international and domestic financial technology standards. Guide the implementation of various financial technology standards in financial institutions, and give play to the normative and leading role of standards.

(21) Promote the sharing and opening of public data resources. Implement the Interim Procedures of Shanghai Municipality for the Opening of Public Data, promote cross-departmental data sharing, and on the premise of fully safeguarding data security, lawfully enrich financial technology data resources. Promote cross-domain and cross-industry data fusion and collaborative innovation, and drive reform and innovation of financial product research and development, business management, and business models. Actively, prudently carry out steady and orderly pilot projects for public data inclusive financial application to promote the secure and controllable, open application of data.

(22) Create a multi-level financing service system. Actively promote the listing of high-quality financial technology enterprises in China. Explore the establishment of Yangtze River Delta financial technology index ETF products to improve the overall development level of this Municipality and the Yangtze River Delta financial technology listed companies. Give play to the role of venture capital investment funds and attract more social capital to invest in financial technology projects. Promote intellectual property to play a greater role in the financing process of financial technology enterprises. Support this Municipality’s policy guarantee fund to expand the guarantee scale for financial technology enterprises.

(23) Increase support of fiscal and taxation policies. Support financial technology enterprises that meet the qualification requirements of high-tech enterprises, technologically advanced service enterprises, and software enterprises to enjoy relevant preferential tax policies. Support financial technology enterprises to apply for special funds for informatization development in this Municipality. Bring financial technology subsidiaries established by qualified financial institutions in this Municipality into the support scope of this Municipality’s financial development funds.

(24) Increase support for financial technology talents. Support financial technology enterprise personnel to enjoy special rewards for designers and core teams of software and integrated circuit enterprises in this Municipality. Encourage financial technology talents to apply for various talent plans in this Municipality. Commercial banks may facilitate current personal income and expenditure and exchange for overseas talents in accordance with relevant provisions. Encourage financial institutions to establish a remuneration system and assessment system compatible with the financial technology market and conducive to motivating financial technology talents and stimulating talent innovation and creativity.

(25) Improve the market environment and the guarantee of the rule of law. Create a fair, orderly and regulated market environment, further improve the market access mechanism of financial technology enterprises, adhere to inclusive and prudent supervision, and support the innovative development of financial technology enterprises. Continue to increase the protection of financial technology intellectual property rights, properly respond to new situations and problems in disputes involving financial technology enterprises, prevent and resolve financial risks, and provide rule of law guarantees for the development of emerging financial technology industries.

This Implementation Plan shall be effective as of February 1, 2020.