Analyse Asia #149: Fintech in China with Zennon Kapron
The state of fintech startups & Baidu-Alibaba-Tencent (BAT) axis in China
Episode Synopsis: Zennon Kapron from China Fintech & Kapron Asia joined us in a conversation to discuss the state of fintech in China. We discussed the different verticals within the fintech sector from digital payments, peer to peer landing to wealth management. He explained how the Baidu-Alibaba-Tencent axis are dominant in fintech against the traditional Chinese banks and western banks and serve as a business model for fintech startups. Last but not least, Zennon shared how local and foreign companies need to navigate the regulation within the industry.
Here are the three interesting points which we discussed during this episode:
- Zennon provided an overview of the fintech ecosystem in China and why startups need to leverage on the BAT ecosystem. The scale achieved by Ant Financial (from Alibaba) with Alipay and Wechat (from Tencent) make it difficult for traditional banks to enter into the digital payments space but offer opportunities for startups which build on top of the BAT business models.
- He shared the challenges faced by Western banks and payment networks such as Visa and Mastercard to enter China, and the regulation in China on the financial industry is relatively straightforward and may subject to changes depending on the government.
- Last but not least, Zennon discussed the interesting fintech verticals for digital payments, peer to peer (P2P) lending, bitcoin and blockchain and wealth management.
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