China takes lead in fintech innovations: experts

China is at the forefront of financial technological innovations that include mobile payment and artificial intelligence (AI), according to industry watchers at the SWIFT International Banker's Operation Seminar, or Sibos, in Beijing.

The four-day Sibos 2024 financial conference concluded on Thursday.

The theme of this year's conference was "Connecting the Future of Finance," with discussion that focused on the digital transformations shaping the industry.

Experts in attendance said China is at the forefront of adopting certain areas of fintech innovations such as mobile payment.

"I think the estimate is that in the next few years, the domestic mobile payment will already exceed 100 trillion U.S. dollars in the next few years," said David Chan, managing director and partner of Boston Consulting Group.

Another area of focus is called embedded finance, which integrates financial services directly into non-financial platforms or applications, such as shopping and travel apps.

The approach allows businesses to seamlessly offer services like payments, loans, insurance and investment options within their existing user experiences.

Most of the services leverage insights from collected customer data to provide tailored financial solutions.

"Also leveraging on the data to do better risk management so that they can actually allow more SMEs, more underbanked populations to be able to access funding," said Chan.

China is also leading in the research and adoption of generative AI, including chatbots that use large language models, or LLMs, to simulate real human communication.

"Even the foundational LLM is at the developing stage, but many of the global banks and insurance companies have been active in adopting use cases which are at the forefront, for example, I think these customer enablement, customer service, call centers," said Nicole Zhou, senior partner of McKinsey and Company.

However, combining AI with financial services is still at an early stage. Experts suggest for the financial industry to fully harness the power of AI, a deeper shift in the operating models of institutions is necessary, but this is expected to take time.

China takes lead in fintech innovations: experts

The death toll from a landfill collapse in the central Philippine city of Cebu has risen to eight by Monday morning as search and rescue operations continued for another 28 missing people.

The landfill collapse occurred on Thursday as dozens of sanitation workers were working at the site. The disaster has already caused injuries of 18 people.

Family members of the missing people said the rescue progress is slow, and the hope for the survival of their loved ones is fading.

"For me, maybe I’ve accepted the worst result already because the garbage is poisonous and yesterday, it was raining very hard the whole day. Maybe they’ve been poisoned. For us, alive or dead, I hope we can get their bodies out of the garbage rubble," said Maria Kareen Rubin, a family member of a victim.

Families have set up camps on high ground near the landfill, awaiting news of their relatives. Some people at the site said cries for help could still be heard hours after the landfill collapsed, but these voices gradually faded away.

Bienvenido Ranido, who lost his wife in the disaster, said he can't believe all that happened.

"After they gave my wife oxygen, my kids and I were expecting that she would be saved that night because she was still alive. But the night came and till the next morning, they didn't manage to save her," he said.

Death toll in central Philippine landfill collapse rises to eight