The rise of Chinese fintech in the 2010s is one of the most exciting and intriguing stories in all of fintech. This has been followed in this decade by a government crackdown on fintech and technology more broadly. But everyone should understand the innovations that led China to become the most advanced country in the world when it comes to fintech.
My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Martin Chorzempa who I got to know in 2014 when I started visiting China. He is now at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and he has written a very important book on Chinese fintech called "The Cashless Revolution: China's Reinvention of Money and the End of America's Domination of Finance and Technology." This is a must-read for anyone in fintech, not just for those people who follow China, as there are lessons here for us all.
In this podcast you will learn:
- How Martin found his way to work at a Chinese think tank, CF40.
- The work he did at CF40.
- What he is focused on today at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
- How he was able to become fluent in Mandarin.
- The state of financial technology when Martin arrived in China in 2012.
- How Tencent and Ant Financial became critically important fintech companies.
- Why the rise of the Super App was the key to the rise of these two companies.
- How the Chinese government enabled this rise.
- What propelled the growth of peer-to-peer lending in China.
- The amazing rise of Sesame Credit, Ant Financial's official credit bureau.
- The government's approach to the huge amounts of data these companies generated.
- The stunning fall of the peer-to-peer lending platform Ezubao.
- How Ant's money market fund, Huabao, became the largest in the world.
- How one speech from Jack Ma become the “The Costliest Speech in History”.
- The lessons the U.S. and the West can take from the rise and fall of fintech in China.
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