On April 13^th 2018,  General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered an important speech at the 30^th anniversary conference to celebrate the establishment of  Hainan Provincial economic special zone, announced that it supported the Hainan in building the pilot free trade zone across the island, in gradually exploring and steadily advancing the development of  the free trade port with  Chinese characteristics. Moreover, the speech also showed that the policies and systems of the free trade port would be established by steps and stages.  Over the past two years, Hainan has fully implemented the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speech on April 13^th to build the pilot free trade zone and free trade port with high standards and high quality. 

In the era of establishing the free trade port in Hainan, as the first and largest undergraduate university, USY is also constantly breaking through the situation in this vast east wind, constantly crossing borders, mobilizing internal energies to integrate more external high-quality resources, releasing more vitality of the university, and diligently completing its own vivid school-running practice. On the occasion of the second anniversary of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speech on April 13^th, USY set up a special topic of ‘Strive for Hainan FTP’ on the official website to report a series of the vision and actions of the university in the construction of Hainan FTP. 

Saxo Fintech Business School

In response to the urgent demand for fintech talents to innovatively develop China’s financial industry and the constructing Hainan FTP, USY and Saxo bank in Denmark established ‘Saxo Fintech Business School’ together which is the first sino-foreign school-enterprise cooperation in China in July 2018. In the past two years, under the background of the needs of fintech talents in the context of the construction of Hainan free trade zone(port), Saxo Fintech Business School has been committed to taking targeted measures to cultivate fintech talents and help students’ employment. The school also has been committed to promoting the innovative development of new form of finance in Hainan and continuously exploring proper talents cultivation models to meet the demand of Hainan FTP construction.

Since the school’s establishment, Tong Daochi, member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Hainan Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of Sanya Municipal Party Committee, Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Group, Li Weiguo, former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Education, and other domestic and foreign political, business and academic dignitaries have visited the university for investigation and research, fully affirmed the advantages of Saxo Fintech Business School and supported the school to build an advanced fintech business school in China.

Financial Innovation and Multi-asset Intelligent Trading Lab

Saxo Fintech Business School of USY, with Saxo Bank of Denmark,  has set up a first-line ‘expert group’ from  its global branches and partners and jointly created a fintech qualify course to share  students professional knowledge such as the information of fintech frontier, investment bank financial ecosystem, operation mode of financial regulators, etc. 

In the aspect of cultivating students’ competitiveness, Saxo Fintech Business School actively builds various platforms for competition in different disciplines to promote learning and practicing through competition. In December 2019, Saxo Fintech Business School and Saxo Bank of Denmark jointly held the first ‘Saxo Fintech Cup’ financial transaction competition. The Saxo Fintech Business School, financial consumer rights protection association in Hainan Pilot Free Trade Zone and Sanya People’s Bank of China jointly held the ‘2019 Knowledge Competition of Financial Consumer Rights Protection and Financial Laws and Regulations in Sanya’. Moreover, the school hosted the Hainan provincial final of  the 15^th national university students ‘Seendao Cup’ sand table simulation business competition sponsored by China federation of commerce and Seendao Technology Limited Liability Company. 

Lesson from  Saxo Bank Specialists 

In the cross-boundary cooperation of ‘politics, industry, education and research’ , Saxo Fintech Business School also actively collaborates with academic community and fintech industry to innovate and realize cross-boundary dialogue by holding high-level academic forums. In December 2018, USY, Hainan financial institute and Saxo Bank of Denmark jointly hosted the first ‘Sanya Fintech Forum’. On the forum, famous specialists and scholars in the field of academia, industry authority and media discussed topics: knowledge mapping of fintech, cooperative and open banks, cutting-edge technology and application of block-chain, innovative practice of fintech and talent cultivation, ect. Those discussions are expected to provide suggestions and references for the new path of rapid development of fintech in Hainan and China. Meanwhile, Saxo Fintech Business School has continued to explore collaborative cooperation projects, respectively joining Hainan financial institute in December 2018 and China fintech education and application innovation alliance in December 2019, so as to gather the backbone of the industry and universities in building a diversified collaborative platform.

Cross-border Cooperation in the Fields of Politics, Industry, Education and Research

Zhao Xiaojun, the CEO of Saxo Bank in China said, “China is the largest fintech market in the global economy and one of the fastest growing and most developed markets. The understanding of data, financial markets and risks will directly affect the future fintech solutions provided by fintech companies. Saxo Bank has extensive practice experience and digital solutions in Europe in the fields of market code of conduct, investor protection and education, etc. In China, Saxo Bank hopes to regard USY as the experimental field to cultivate talents, share practices experience and exchange experience in the field of fintech and regulatory technology, so as to provide China’s financial services industry  with trading channels, diversified choices, professional interaction and solutions in the global market.”

(Photos from: Saxo Fintech Business School, USY)

(Edited by: Xu Ying     Translated by: Song Yidan     Proofread by: Xue Yuhang & Liu Peiyun)