Hong Kong's Fintech PoC Scheme to Open for Application from February 26

The Hong Kong's Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau (FSTB) announced on January 6 that the Fintech Proof-of-Concept Subsidy Scheme (PoC Scheme), which aims to encourage traditional financial institutions to team up with fintech firms to carry out PoC projects on innovative financial services, will start to accept application from February 26. 

"Through the PoC Scheme, we hope that the fintech sector will grasp the opportunity to proactively put forth and test various innovative and practical fintech solutions and products, especially in areas that are increasingly mainstream and related to daily economic activities and people's livelihood, such as regtech, trade financing, cross-boundary/border payments and robo-advisory," said Mr Christopher Hui, the Secretary for the FSTB. 

​The PoC Scheme will provide each approved PoC project with a maximum one-off grant of up to $100,000. The grant will be raised to a maximum of $150,000 in the case of a complex PoC projects with broad usage, such as those involving cross-sector or cross-border applications. The total grant the Government has prepared for the scheme comes in at $10 million. The subsidised PoC projects may also be provided with additional financial resources by financial institutions.

The scheme requires the applicants to be a Hong Kong-registered fintech company having a fixed physical office in Hong Kong, together with a financial institution regulated by a Hong Kong's regulator, such as the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), the Insurance Authority (IA) and/or the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority (MPFA). It also demands that the issues the PoC project addresses must be the practical issue currently faced by the financial institution and concerned with no previously used case in the market.

Cyberport, a creative digital community in Hong Kong, has been appointed by the FSTB to administer the PoC Scheme. Fintech firms and financial institutions can submit applications via the Cyperport website (pocsubsidy.cyberport.hk) from February 26 till June 30. Details including application procedures, supporting documents required, etc. will be published on Cyperport's website in due course.