China S Fintech Explosion

Financial technology—or fintech—is gaining in popularity globally as a way of making financial services more efficient and accessible. In rapidly developing China, fintech is taking off, catering to markets that state-owned banks and an undersized financial sector do not serve amid a backdrop of growing consumption and a large, tech-savvy millennial generation. It is becoming increasingly likely that some of China’s fintech firms will change the way the world does business. In China’s Fintech Explosion, Sara Hsu and Jianjun Li explore the transformative potential of China’s financial-technology industry, describing the risks and rewards for participants as well as the impact on consumers. They cover fintech’s many subsectors, such as digital payment systems, peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding, credit card issuance, internet banks, blockchain finance and virtual currencies, and online insurance. The book highlights the disruption of traditional banking as well as the risks of fintech and regulatory technology. Hsu and Li describe major companies including Alipay and Tencent, developer of WeChat Pay and a wealth-management business, and other leading fintech firms such as Creditease, Zhong An Insurance, and JD Finance. Offering expert analysis of market potential, risks, and competition, as well as case studies of firms and consumer behavior, China’s Fintech Explosion is a must-read for anyone interested in one of the world’s breakout sectors.

"With the rapid expansion of the internet market and the booming of start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), China has, over the past decade, seen explosive growth of the so-called internet Finance, a joint product of internet and the financial sector, which is more commonly referred to as Fintech in other jurisdictions. The term Fintech, a portmanteau word made of 'finance' and 'technology', is often used to describe the intersection of finance and technology. As the technology is mainly related to the internet, it has come to be known as Internet Finance in China. In fact, there is no precise and widely accepted definition of Internet Finance or Fintech. While Fintech is basically understood as technologies which are used to change and improve the existing business mode of finance, Internet Finance is defined as 'a new type of financial mode that integrates the functions of financing, payment and information media via internet and mobile communications technology'"--

China’s digital economy has expanded rapidly in recent years. While average digitalization of the economy remains lower than in advanced economies, digitalization is already high in certain regions and sectors, in particular e-commerce and fintech, and costal regions. Such transformation has boosted productivity growth, with varying impact on employment across sectors. Going forward, digitalization will continue to reshape the Chinese economy by improving efficiency, softening though not reversing, the downward trend of potential growth as the economy matures. The government should play a vital role in maximizing the benefits of digitalization while minimizing related risks, such as potential labor disruption, privacy infringement, emerging oligopolies, and financial risks.

Cashless dives into the design and use of China's new central bank digital currency.

China's rise as an economic superpower has caused growing anxieties in the West. Europe is now applying stricter scrutiny over takeovers by Chinese state-owned giants, while the United States is imposing aggressive sanctions on leading Chinese technology firms such as Huawei, TikTok, and WeChat. Given the escalating geopolitical tensions between China and the West, are there any hopeful prospects for economic globalization? In her compelling new book Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism, Angela Zhang examines the most important and least understood tactic that China can deploy to counter western sanctions: antitrust law. Zhang reveals how China has transformed antitrust law into a powerful economic weapon, supplying theory and case studies to explain its strategic application over the course of the Sino-US tech war. Zhang also exposes the vast administrative discretion possessed by the Chinese government, showing how agencies can leverage the media to push forward aggressive enforcement. She further dives into the bureaucratic politics that spurred China's antitrust regulation, providing an incisive analysis of how divergent missions, cultures, and structures of agencies have shaped regulatory outcomes. More than a legal analysis, Zhang offers a political and economic study of our contemporary moment. She demonstrates that Chinese exceptionalism-as manifested in the way China regulates and is regulated, is reshaping global regulation and that future cooperation relies on the West comprehending Chinese idiosyncrasies and China achieving greater transparency through integration with its Western rivals.

The great political ideas and movements of the modern world were founded on a promise of universal emancipation. But in recent decades, much of the Left has grown suspicious of such aspirations. Critics see the invocation of universality as a form of domination or a way of speaking for others, and have come to favor a politics of particularism—often derided as “identity politics.” Others, both centrists and conservatives, associate universalism with twentieth-century totalitarianism and hold that it is bound to lead to catastrophe. This book develops a new conception of universality that helps us rethink political thought and action. Todd McGowan argues that universals such as equality and freedom are not imposed on us. They emerge from our shared experience of their absence and our struggle to attain them. McGowan reconsiders the history of Nazism and Stalinism and reclaims the universalism of movements fighting racism, sexism, and homophobia. He demonstrates that the divide between Right and Left comes down to particularity versus universality. Despite the accusation of identity politics directed against leftists, every emancipatory political project is fundamentally a universal one—and the real proponents of identity politics are the right wing. Through a wide range of examples in contemporary politics, film, and history, Universality and Identity Politics offers an antidote to the impasses of identity and an inspiring vision of twenty-first-century collective struggle.

Informal finance consists of nonbank financing activities, whether conducted through family and friends, local money houses, or other types of financial associations. It has provided much-needed financing to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in particular, in the face of a tightly constrained and overburdened formal banking system. Unable to obtain a bank loan, firms have relied upon individuals and informal organizations outside of the banking system to obtain financing for their ventures or working capital (operating funds). Presently there is a scarcity of information on informal finance in China and it is expected to have a significant impact upon GDP and money supply. This book, with contributions from leading scholars, describes the evolution, characteristics, and variation of informal finance in China from American and Chinese perspectives. Literature by Jiang Shuxia, Jiang Xuzhao, and Li Jianjun has heretofore been available only in Chinese, while work by Kellee Tsai, Jianwen Liao, Harold Welsch, David Pistrui, and Sara Hsu has been available in English. For the first time, they come together to discuss informal financing and its many aspects. Most of the essays are based upon original survey research conducted locally, as this type of data is not normally collected by the government. The papers pioneer the description and analysis of the nuances of informal finance from several perspectives; the authors look at the social, cultural, political, and economic causes of informal finance, its many variations, and its economic, personal, and political ramifications.

Beyond Fintech: Technology Applications for the Islamic Economy is a follow-up to the first-ever Islamic Fintech book by the author (published in 2018) that provided linkages between Islamic Finance and disruptive technologies like the blockchain. In the wake of fintech as a new trend in financial markets, the ground-breaking book stressed the relevance of Islamic finance and its implications, when enabled by fintech, towards the development of the Islamic digital economy. While the earlier work discussed the crucial innovation, structural, and institutional development for financial technologies in Islamic Finance, this new research explores the multiple applications possible in the various sectors of the economy, within and beyond finance, that can be significantly transformed. These revolutionary applications involve the integration of AI, blockchain, data analytics, and Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices for a holistic solution to tackle the bottlenecks and other issues in existing processes of traditional systems. The principles of accountability, duty, justice, and transparency are the foundation of shaping the framework in achieving good governance in all institutions — public or private, Islamic or otherwise. Technologies like AI, blockchain, and IoT devices can operationalize the transparency and accountability that is required to eradicate poverty, distribute wealth, enhance micro-, small- and large-scale initiatives for social and economic development, and thus share prosperity for a moral system that enables a more secure and sustainable economy.