high aspiration and readiness to embrace frontier technologies will allow the fintech firms from mainland china to adapt and expand to international markets quicker and safer ; whereas on the northbound, hong kong can 1 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches facilitate fintech firms abroad to enter into the mainland china, the world's top consumer market for fintech. as an example, webank, an established mainland digital bank, set up its technology company headquarters in hong kong in july this year, further paving the way to commercialise its technology solutions for the global markets. we are pleased to have mr henry ma from webank, who will share his experience in the upcoming panel discussion. given such a pivotal role as a fintech catalyst, the value of hong kong is substantial. the next and more important question we have is : how do we better achieve this role? how do hong kong better achieve its role? in nature, catalysts accelerate growth and lower " activation barriers ", i. e. the energy required to initiate growth. in the fintech ecosystem, this is the role of hong kong – fostering fintech growth while addressing key adoption barriers. so, what exactly are the key barriers facing the industry? according to a recent cross - sectoral adoption study conducted under the hkma's " all banks go fintech " initiative, the top three fintech adoption barriers are : uncertainty about regulatory compliance when adopting novel technologies ; unavailability of data accessible in a secure manner ; and unawareness of the plethora of fintech solutions. to cross these barriers, the hkma has indeed endeavoured to roll out a wide range of facilitative measures. barrier 1 : uncertainty about regulatory compliance when adopting novel technologies gba fintech pilot trial facility with the aim of addressing the regulatory uncertainties about cross - border technology adoption, the gba fintech pilot trial facility was jointly launched in 2022 by the people's bank of china ( pboc ) and the hkma ( and further linked up with the respective pilot trial facility of the monetary authority of macao in november 2023 ) to facilitate pilot trials of cross - border fintech initiatives, allowing testing to be conducted concurrently in hong kong and mainland gba cities. the facility has enabled banks and fintech solution providers to obtain early supervisory feedback and user opinions, expedite the launch of fintech products, and ultimately reduce development costs. we are encouraged to see successful production roll - out of cross

border fintech solutions following these trials. generative artificial intelligence ( gena. i. ) sandbox in august 2024, a new gena. i. sandbox was launched by the hkma and cyberport to promote responsible innovation in gena. i. across the banking industry as well as to 2 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches support banks in piloting novel use cases that focus on enhancing risk management, anti - fraud efforts and customer experience, providing banks with essential technical assistance and targeted supervisory feedback. barrier 2 : unavailability of data accessible in a secure manner shenzhen - hong kong cross - boundary data validation platform moving on to the second barrier, in order to facilitate the use of data across borders, the hkma and the shenzhen authorities launched the shenzhen - hong kong crossboundary data validation platform in may 2024, providing a credible means for validating the authenticity of documents presented by data owners. on this new platform, the first phase of pilot trials has been conducted, covering crossboundary validation of credit reference reports and account opening documents for corporate customers. we encourage banks to utilise the platform to discover innovative use cases and conduct pilot trials involving cross - border data validation through the hkma's fintech supervisory sandbox. barrier 3 : unawareness of the plethora of fintech solutions finetech series and fintech knowledge hub as for the third barrier, removing it requires greater awareness of fintech solutions throughout the ecosystem. the hkma and the other financial regulators have launched the finetech series to bring together financial institutions and fintech service providers. furthermore, we have upgraded our existing regtech knowledge hub to a new fintech knowledge hub, which serves as a central portal of the latest fintech news, events, hkma publications to name a few. though our efforts to boost awareness did not stop here. fintech connect today, we are also pleased to announce the launch of the fintech connect, a new cross - sectoral matching platform, that enables financial institutions to discover innovative solutions and partner with solution providers via more direct networking and precise matching. in collaboration with the qianhai authority, the hkma has also onboarded fintech firms in the qianhai region to the fintech connect platform to further promote fintech development. through the fintech connect, financial institutions from hong kong are better equipped with access to the innovation from the qianhai region, and qianhai fintech firms are afforded greater opportunities to access