Photo taken on Oct. 3, 2020 shows the night view of Victoria Harbour in south China's Hong Kong, Oct. 3, 2020.(Photo: Xinhua)

The COVID-19 outbreak has served as a catalyst for acceptance and adoption of digital solutions among Hong Kong consumers and businesses, prompting fintech innovations to become mainstream, the city's financial secretary said on Monday, igniting hopes of the key Asian financial hub joining hands with Chinese mainland counterparts to ride the fintech wave.

The Faster Payment System (FPS), which was launched in 2018 to enable 24-hour instant payments in both Hong Kong dollars and the yuan, had booked 6.2 million registrations as of September in the city of 7.5 million people, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po disclosed while delivering remarks at the Hong Kong Fintech Week 2020. The annual fintech gathering, attracting over 12,000 participants and more than 200 exhibitors, began on Monday and will end on Friday. 

The FPS' average daily turnover hit 426,000 transactions in September, seven times more than the number recorded during the instant transfer system's first month of business, according to Chan.

Several local government departments have plans to embrace the system for payments of fees and charges by the end of the year, he revealed. 

The city is home to more than 600 fintech start-ups and firms, including eight unicorns, referring to start-ups valued at $1 billion or more. 

In a sign of the city's start-up vibrancy in spite of the pandemic, over 20 start-ups based in Hong Kong raised nearly $500 million in venture funding during the first seven months of the year, according to the financial secretary.

Such remarks coincided with the announcement of a trip to the Chinese mainland by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam.

Lam is scheduled to visit Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen from Tuesday to Saturday. Among the officials accompanying her are Secretary for Innovation and Technology Alfred Sit and Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui.

The push for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area's development and cooperation between Hong Kong and Shenzhen will be a highlight of Lam's visit, the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region said.

With fintech charting the future of the financial sector, it surely makes sense for Hong Kong to up the ante in fintech, Ding Meng, an economist at the Bank of China (Hong Kong), told the Global Times on Monday.

The city's tie-up with the Chinese mainland currently focuses on IPOs and bond financing, but there's substantial potential for fintech partnerships, especially in fintech research, Ding said, noting that the launch of cross-border fintech projects is still subject to the central government's regulatory stance. 

At a press conference held by the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee at the end of October, Han Wenxiu, deputy director of the Office of Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs, said that during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), the central government will further support Hong Kong to consolidate its competitive edge, establish an international innovation and sci-tech hub, and aim for the creation of the Greater Bay Area in a high-quality manner.