uSMART Support FinTech Innovation with Hong Kong FinTech Week Sponsorship

Relentless Efforts to Promote FinTech Development in the Great Bay Area

(6 November 2019) uSMART Securities Limited (“uSMART Securities”), a new-generation online securities brokerage firm, demonstrates its steadfast support to Hong Kong's FinTech development by being a Gold Sponsor to the Hong Kong FinTech Week held during 4 – 6 November 2019. Torry Hong, Director of uSMART Securities Limited, was invited as a panelist to today's panel discussion entitled "Embracing FinTech Opportunities in GBA" to explore the opportunities of the financial industry in the Greater Bay Area (“GBA”) together with the leaders of other financial institution.

During the panel discussion, Torry pointed out that financial technology innovation is an important direction outlined in the "Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area". To boost the development of financial services in the GBA, the government needs to promote mutual recognition of professional qualifications in Hong Kong and the Mainland in order to encourage financial industry players in Hong Kong to expand to the GBA.

On the other hand, there are differences in competitive edges and cultures among cities in the GBA. To remove hurdles and enable business development of the securities industry in the GBA, it is essential to promote the integration of laws and regulations between Hong Kong and the Mainland. Torry Hong suggested that the government could also consider allowing Hong Kong securities brokerage firms to set up offices in the GBA. This could encourage mainland investors to open accounts and invest in Hong Kong stocks to foster the development of the stock market. In addition, he also suggested that Hong Kong and the Mainland should mutually recognise each other's securities practitioner qualifications, which would enable individual investors in the GBA to gain insights from Hong Kong stocks and the A-Share investment market.

Speaking of the development of the future securities industry in the GBA, Torry stated that, "All regions in the GBA should contribute to strengthening the interconnection of financial markets in the region, and gradually promote the cross-border transactions of financial products such as securities and funds, offering investors access to a wider array of investment products."

Torry pointed out that uSMART Securities is a beneficiary of the financial development in the GBA, "Shenzhen is known as "China's Silicon Valley" and has cultivated a large number of talents for the development of science and technology. The core team of uSMART Securities are industry experts, while many of them are top talents coming from Shenzhen. At the same time, the company fully benefits from Hong Kong's status as an international financial hub and talent pool, providing a solid foundation for our development in terms of human resources and capital flow."

uSMART Securities’ core management and financial technology team are from world-renowned technology giants and financial institutions including UBS, Goldman Sachs, Tencent, Alibaba, Microsoft, Yahoo and Uber. Torry Hong is the Director of uSMART Securities Limited, responsible for providing overall strategic directions and refining business development system for the company. Torry brings to the company substantial experience in financial technology and financial innovation. He was previously the Product Director of the financial technology business, and the Director of digital platform and product at Tencent.  He served as the project in charge in WeChat Pay HK and the Head of Alipay's core trading system. He is currently a member of the Departmental Advisory Committee of Department of Information Systems at the City University of Hong Kong. Dr. Xin Hai is the Chief Quantitative Investment Expert of uSMART Securities. He heads the company's investment research department and is responsible for the development of quantitative products and the preparation of the Company’s asset management business. Prior to joining uSMART Securities, Dr. Xin held various positions at UBS, and he was the managing director of BNP Paribas’s asset management department and the head of the asset management department at Huatai Hong Kong. He also served as a visiting associate professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology from 2009 to 2018.

uSMART Securities attaches great importance to talent development and is committed to bringing diversified investment products and services to its customers. Torry mentioned “Leveraging the combined strengths of all cities in the GBA, we target to build a new generation professional smart investment platform. We are committed to utilising state-of-the art financial technologies include AI, big data and machine learning algorithms, to facilitate the management of investment portfolio in simple smarter ways. The “uSMART” mobile App is characterised with over 200 quantitative trading elements, through which uSMART Securities provides diversified investment strategies to investors as references in stock selection process. In addition to US and Hong Kong stock trading, uSMART Securities also offers ETFs, funds, warrants, callable bull/bear contracts, inline warrants, IPOs (public and international offerings), conditional triggering orders and 24-hour FX swaps on trading days, allowing investors to capture global investment opportunities at all times. In order to encourage investors to seize opportunities, uSMART Securities provides all the "uSMART" mobile App customers with "Zero commission fee for US and Hong Kong stock trading" in order to attract them to experience our professional, intelligent, caring new investment services.”

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