On Monday, the first day of the 10th Hong Kong FinTech Week — co-organized by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and Invest Hong Kong, the HKMA unveiled its Fintech 2030 strategy, a forward-looking game plan for driving Hong Kong’s development.

HKMA Chief Executive Eddie Yue Wai-man outlined the vision of Fintech 2030 as a strategy to make Hong Kong a robust, resilient, and future-ready fintech hub, focusing on four strategic pillars — collectively known as DART — with a comprehensive portfolio of over 40 initiatives, including: creating the next-generation data and payment infrastructure; a new holistic “artificial intelligence combined with authorized institutions” strategy (AI2Strategy); enhancing business, technology and quantum resilience; and tokenization of finance.

Fintech 2030 is the third stage of Hong Kong’s strategy for the financial sector; the first phase, launched in 2017, introduced digital banks, and the second phase, in 2021, emphasized fintech’s practicality, according to Yue.

That the HKMA is moving from an earlier horizon of Fintech 2025 into a bold Fintech 2030 era shows both ambition and maturity. The earlier phase was about adoption, digitization and laying the groundwork; now the agenda is about embedding truly transformative infrastructure, creating new asset classes, connecting across borders, and building resilience in a world where technology and finance increasingly interweave. The transition reflects a savvy reading of global trends: Risk is higher, pace is faster, and competitive advantage will go to those who combine innovation with institutional strength.

To sum up, Hong Kong’s role in the Greater Bay Area, its unique position as a bridge between the mainland and global markets, and its strengths in regulation, capital markets and connectivity all remain foundational. Fintech 2030 builds upon these foundations rather than ignoring them

For Hong Kong, this is a moment of both opportunity and responsibility. The city has long held the promise of being Asia’s preeminent international finance center; across the decades it has built a stellar legal, regulatory and capital markets foundation. Now, as global fintech competition heats up — from Singapore to Dubai, from London to Seoul — Hong Kong’s edge will hinge on how effectively it can move from promise to practice, from regulatory rhetoric to system redesign, from pilot to scale. In that sense, Fintech 2030 is not a nice add-on: It is central to Hong Kong’s strategic relevance in the region, and to sustaining its feeder role in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and beyond.

The city is now home to more than 1,200 fintech companies, a 10 percent increase from last year, with the sector’s revenue expected to exceed $600 billion by 2032.

Why does all this matter, and why now? The world is changing quickly. Post-COVID-19 pandemic, digital finance, cross-border payments, programmable assets, AI-driven services and tokenization are accelerating at a rate few foresaw. Moreover, the shifting geoeconomic landscape and technological competition mean the window to establish leadership is finite. For Hong Kong, the race is not just to keep up but to stand out. Fintech 2030 gives the city a renewed identity — not simply a current global finance center but also a future financial center.

While Hong Kong profits from being the gateway to the Chinese mainland, this role will admittedly diminish as the mainland opens up its economy and financial system to outside players. Thus, it would be wise for Hong Kong to diversify its economy as much as possible. It must therefore grab hold of any opportunity. And anything fintech-related is undoubtedly a great opportunity. Hong Kong is never satisfied with what it has and thus is always trying to enhance its status by not only becoming stronger in the most traditional areas in which it excels, but also by embracing newer areas such as digital assets, AI, green finance and Islamic finance.

We must also bear in mind that Hong Kong is one of the world’s most important financial centers whose role is not only maintaining but improving year after year. The city ranked third globally in the latest Global Financial Centres Index Report.

Also — and this is very relevant, fintech-wise — Hong Kong took top position followed by Shenzhen, with New York falling to third place. Related to this, in the 2025 Global Innovation Index released by the World Intellectual Property Organization, the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou cluster ranked first worldwide. This reflects Hong Kong’s preeminence not only as a financial hub but as a rising center for technology, research, and creativity. In addition, Hong Kong’s robust rule of law and sound legal system are widely recognized in the international community. The city was ranked 24th out of 143 jurisdictions surveyed in the 2025 World Justice Project Rule of Law Index.

One of the key reasons why initiatives such as Hong Kong’s rise as a greentech and Web3 hub — along with its growing potential in AI — hold such promise is not only the city’s enduring status as one of the world’s foremost financial centers and a vital bridge to the mainland, but also its integration into the Greater Bay Area project. The Greater Bay Area enhances Hong Kong’s future potential, and it benefits from Hong Kong’s global reach. By actively embracing Greater Bay Area opportunities and playing a proactive role in China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), and soon the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30), the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is unleashing new momentum with strong support from the central authorities. Key strategies to strengthen its superconnector role include the promotion of the digital yuan and leadership in environmental, social and governance initiatives. Financial cooperation between Hong Kong and the rest of the Greater Bay Area is already expanding and will undoubtedly become even more critical in the years ahead.

To sum up, Hong Kong’s role in the Greater Bay Area, its unique position as a bridge between the mainland and global markets, and its strengths in regulation, capital markets and connectivity all remain foundational. Fintech 2030 builds upon these foundations rather than ignoring them. It is a timely, well-conceived, bold blueprint for Hong Kong’s next chapter of development, so the city can build on its strengths as a financial center of the past to become a fintech center of the future.

Hong Kong is not “over”, as some critics say, but just adapting to different times.

The author is a fintech adviser, a researcher and a former business analyst for a Hong Kong publicly listed company.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.