The Department of Economics and Finance and the Centre for Global Financial & FinTech co-organised “FinTech Essentials: An Introduction to Industry Tools” on 22 October 2026 (Thursday). Dr Andy Cheng, Mr Bosco Yim and Dr Jason Liao introduced students to the FinTech landscape in Hong Kong and to the tools that practitioners use every day.
The session was designed for students who want to know what the industry actually runs on before they join it. FinTech is often taught as a set of definitions — blockchain, robo-advisory, virtual banking. The speakers took a different route: they started from the screens. Terminals, market data services and platform tools are where regulation, product design and risk management meet in practice, and where a graduate’s first weeks on a desk are usually spent.
The first part of the session surveyed the current FinTech landscape of Hong Kong, the banks, virtual banks, insurers, brokers, payment firms and technology providers that now make up the sector, and the kinds of roles they hire for.
Introductions on the industry-standard Bloomberg terminal and a FinTech platform followed, built around a live demonstration rather than a user manual. Students watched how professional market data and analytics are used in practice: how prices, curves, news and filings are read on a single screen, and how quickly that reading has to be turned into a decision.
The event was open to all students of the Department of Economics and Finance, and forms part of the Department’s effort to bring industry practice into the student experience. It was run together with the Centre for Global Financial & FinTech.