HKMA and ASTRI launch ‘Fintech Career Accelerator Scheme’ to offer fintech internship

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced that it has collaborated with the Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) and launched the Fintech Career Accelerator Scheme (FCAS) in order to nurture talents and meet the growing needs of fintech in Hong Kong.

The FCAS aims to offer practical internships for undergraduate and postgraduate students who are interested in developing their careers in the fintech industry. The project is being supported by 11 banks including Bank of China (Hong Kong), The Bank of East Asia, BNP Paribas Hong Kong, Citibank (Hong Kong), DBS Bank (Hong Kong), among others and nine universities including City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong Shue Yan University, Lingnan University, among others.

The launching ceremony of FCAS took place recently at the HKMA that was jointly hosted by Norman TL Chan, Chief Executive of the HKMA, and Ming-Yam Wong, Chairman of ASTRI. The inaugural ceremony saw guests including senior executives of 11 banks and presidents or senior staff members of nine universities.

“Soft power is core to the development of an international financial centre, and having talents is the key. We must nurture sufficient local talents in the long term to ensure that the development of the fintech ecosystem is sustainable. The FCAS is a win-win initiative as it gives students the opportunities to gain practical experience with their knowledge, while allowing banks to source and identify talents for future employment,” Chan stated.

With series of training and cultivating talents, FCAS will help in preparing the right workforce for the banking sector by providing an internship scheme to students that combine both academic theory and practice.

“We can foresee strong demand for fintech talents and solutions especially given Hong Kong's global positioning as one of the top financial hubs, and also the meteoric growth of fintech in Mainland China. The FCAS is a collective effort amongst the HKMA, ASTRI, the participating banks and universities to nurture fintech talents - embracing the latest global trends and developments in fintech,” Franklin Tong, Chief Executive Officer of ASTRI, said.

​The selected candidates will get engaged in a comprehensive internship with exposure to bank’s fintech projects, as well as regulatory briefings and technical trainings that will be provided by the HKMA and ASTRI respectively. The internship has around 70 openings offered by 11 participating banks and will last for six months or one year, starting from the summer of 2017.

Banks will offer various types of fintech projects including cybersecurity, distributed ledger technology, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, biometric authentication, mobile app development, among others. Students of undergraduate and postgraduate courses in engineering, computer science, science, business and finance, and law can apply.

The application is currently open and closes on 4 February 2017. The results will be announced by participating banks around the end of April after selection interviews.