President Soon Heung Chang took a business trip to Europe seeking ways to revitalize and benchmark FinTech. The trip benchmarked advanced finances in European countries which have been revitalizing FinTech. He also began to establish a cooperative network and relationships with European FinTech related organizations.
President Chang proposed the top ten projects: the Regional Development Project, the Unified Korea Project, the Africa Project, the Start-ups Revitalization Project, the Smart Financing (FinTech) Project, the Next Generation ICT Project, the Next Generation Food, Shelter, and Clothing Project, the Health and Well-being Project in his inauguration as President of Handong Global University in February 2014.
This visit was related to the Regional Development Project, the Start-ups Revitalization Project, and the Smart Financing (FinTech) Project. FinTech is a term coined by combining Finance and Technology. It refers to hardware which can be utilized in financial services and software related to the financial industry. The software includes payment settlements, data analyzation, platforms, P2P loans, software solutions, and cloud funding.
Ireland, England, and Luxemburg were visited. These countries are leading the global FinTech industry. The U.S. and recently, Australia, Singapore, Hongkong, and Israel are putting tremendous efforts into the revitalization of FinTech.
Pohang city, where Handong Global University is located, has been achieving rapid growth in the steel industry. However, it is time to seek a new growth engine. President Chang stressed the importance of FinTech as a new growth engine for Pohang city. He suggested a new strategy for new development in Pohang through the convergence of the steel industry and the financial software industry. In addition, President Chang unveiled his goal to bring more local development and to create jobs through FinTech. There will also be new funding for students and people who are dreaming of start-ups.
President Chang visited FinTech Innovation Lab of Dublin, a company founded with the partnership of local financial institutions headed by Accenture. Accenture is a professional consulting company. He visited Barclays, a large bank, and benchmarked the strategies to revitalize FinTech and start-ups. Through the Enterprise Ireland Program, Ireland has been supporting more than seventy start-ups every year and securing more than 800 million euros of start-ups investment funds including angle investments, and venture capital.
In England, the FinTech cluster called Level39 was created to bring a synergy effect between financial industries that have secured technology and global competitiveness in March, 2013. President Chang had a meeting with Eric Van der Kleij, Head of Level39. Level39 is Europe's largest technology accelerator for finance, retail, cyber-security and future cities technology companies. It is located on the 39th floor of One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, the hub of finance in London. As of today, about 100 FinTech related companies have been attracted. Level39 has been serving as an incubator by providing management consulting, fund assistance and a bridge between large financial businesses in Canary Wharf.
In Luxemburg, President Chang visited a number of places including: the Ministry of Economy, the Financial Industry Promotion Agency, the Academy-Industry Cooperation organizations of the University of Luxembourg, the Luxembourg School of Finance, the Luxembourg Fund Union, the Luxembourg Bank Union, the Luxembourg Innovation Support Institution, the University of Luxembourg, and local new venture enterprises. The University of Luxembourg and the Innovation Support Institution are located on the site of an old steel plant in Esch-sur-Alzette's Belval. The University of Luxembourg has made it into the top 200 universities of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. In the globalization sector, the school ranked as the world's second best. In Luxemburg, 45% are foreigners and most people are good at speaking four languages such as Luxembourgish, German, French, and English. This gives the people strong competitiveness in gloablization. The country is one of the representative countries that has become a small but strong innovative nation. It has the highest GDP ratio in the world. The high GDP was created by attracting the financial industry instead of the sluggish steel industry.
This business trip is the start of detailed plans for HGU to set-up local development through revitalization of FinTech as the new growth engine. As the first university to be designated as a leading school in Academic-Industry Cooperation, the school will focus on nurturing a new academic-industry cooperation model and talents. This will bring the development of local industry through the revitalization of the FinTech industry.
