中国已经成为世界范围内金融科技最为重要的发展国之一，律师们也已经做好准备，要在这一领域中大展宏图。
金融科技已经迅速成为中国增速最快的行业之一，中国也成为了世界上最大的金融科技市场。
埃森哲今年的一份分析报告显示，2018年，全球对金融科技企业的投资翻了一番以上，高达553亿美元。中国是这一显著增长的主要推动力——2018年，中国（金融科技）的交易额增长了9倍，达到255亿美元，占当年所有金融科技投资的46%。
“区块链”“云技术”和“大数据”等热词随处可见。
“（当下热点话题包括）电子支付、人工智能、云计算、大数据和区块链等。”段和段律师事务所合伙人丁杰说，“某些传统企业，如新零售业等，在探索如何使用区块链技术，打通供应链端、物流端、交易端，并提升交易的速度。”
“利用新技术来升级甚至颠覆现有的金融科技产品和服务，部署更好的云基础架构以及实现更强大的安全系统，都是金融科技领域的热门话题。” 诺顿罗氏律师事务所合伙人李晓蓓律师说。李律师负责牵头该所中国办公室的金融科技和TMT业务。
“我们预计，金融科技行业将在开发新产品和商业模式的过程中部署更多的新兴技术，例如人工智能、区块链、大数据、云计算和物联网等，为中小企业提供更广泛的金融服务，同时建立起稳健的安全系统。”李律师补充道。
金融科技的迅速崛起也使得对法律服务的需求激增。
企业在推出新业务或新产品之前通常会进行法律和监管分析。高伟绅律师事务所的银行和金融业务高级律师刘天峰说，随着人们意识到这一领域具有巨大潜力，金融科技相关资产的并购活动也正变得越来越活跃。
政府规划
由于政府不断探索金融科技的监管模式，律师们需要在这个快速变化的行业中担当起为企业保驾护航的职责。丁律师表示，那些持有金融牌照的服务提供商在律师的协助下已经加大了在金融科技方面的投入；但尚在起步阶段的以及中型的金融科技企业则“ 忽视了该行业内在的‘金融’属性”，导致公司或者创始人触犯了相应的法律法规。
围绕金融科技有许多法律方面的讨论，其中之一就是金融监管的界限，即金融科技活动在多大程度上属于金融监管的范围。“随着P2P借贷丑闻的曝光，中国政府绝对不会容忍任何金融服务被‘包装’成新技术，从而在当前的监管框架之外运作。”刘律师说。
今年8月份，中国人民银行印发了《金融科技（FinTech）发展规划（2019—2021年）》，明确提出未来三年金融科技工作的指导思想、基本原则、发展目标、重点任务和保障措施。
该项三年规划旨在提高金融服务的质量，加强对技术驱动型创新的监管，并遏制金融风险。
“《规划》是央行关于金融科技的第一个整体政策，为在中国发展金融科技行业提供了清晰的路线图和自上而下的指导。”李律师告诉ALB。
《规划》强调了使用新兴技术（ 如人工智能、大数据、云计算、虚拟身份识别等）来赋能金融服务的重要性，鼓励利用金融科技提高金融效率，同时提升金融风控水平和金融监管效能，李律师解释道。
“《规划》表明，需要采用‘沙盒’ 方法来鼓励创新，并在推广和推出新的金融科技产品和服务方面具有灵活性。”李律师说。
她还指出，特别值得注意的一个方面是，《规划》强调了金融行业中网络安全和个人信息保护的重要性。为此，《规划》敦促制定并出台安全计划和网络安全应急预案，通过建立安全规则，使用经认可的安全产品和技术，以及进行定期审核和安全评估，来保护金融信息和个人信息。
“这种平衡的方法似乎传达了央行的一贯立场，即在利用新兴技术开发新的金融科技产品和服务的同时，风险管控同样非常重要，这无疑在给律师们带来机遇的同时也带来了挑战。” 李律师说道。
“我认为央行正秉着务实的态度，积极探索并着力解决过去几年因行业快速发展而遗留或者发现的一些问题。”段和段律师事务所的丁律师说。“ 稳定的、与国际接轨的国内监管对于行业来说是一个重大的利好，可以促进更多的高质量企业选择拥抱监管。”
“正如央行在《规划》中所指出的，金融科技是技术驱动的金融服务创新。因此，金融科技的本质仍然是金融服务，但是随着技术创新，金融科技的表现形式可能与传统的金融服务大相径庭，因此会带来新的问题和需要应对的风险。”刘律师表示。
李律师指出，据有关报道称，央行加快了开发数字货币的进程，这与其三年规划相呼应。丁律师则有兴趣了解是否会有新的政策出台来规范其他加密货币，以及境外数字货币交易所是否可以在中国境内合法经营。
刘律师表示：“预计政府将发布金融科技基本法规以设定关键参数，但这似乎会是一项中期计划。因此，如何在监管与发展之间取得平衡仍然需要进一步的考量。”
除了金融科技发展规划外，高伟绅律师事务所银行与金融业务合伙人杨大志（Terry Yang）提出了一个同样重要的问题：中国数据监管的发展，尤其是跨境数据传输处理方面的监管。
“对于寻求进入中国金融科技市场的国际参与者而言，这方面尤为重要，因为在所有司法管辖区，越来越多的域外数据安全要求可能会要求市场参与者付出巨大的努力以确保合规性。”杨律师说。
他补充道：“中国最近宣布了一项立法程序，以更新其数据保护框架。许多观察家预计，目前的高级别规则在要点制定方面可能类似于欧盟的《 通用数据保护条例》（GDPR），将对以个人信息驱动的金融科技创新的发展产生重要影响。”
客户需求
为了满足客户不断变化的需求，律所纷纷调整其业务策略。李律师说，由于金融科技行业的持续增长势头，许多金融机构、数据分析公司、私募股权投资者和技术颠覆者都在与其律所接触，他们或是正在进入金融科技市场，或是试图扩张其在该市场上的地位。
据她透露：“风险管理也是这些客户在设计和开发新的金融科技产品和服务时所关注的主要问题。我们已经协助许多客户分析并降低监管、金融、网络安全和数据隐私方面的风险。”
金融科技行业对律师和律所提出了独特的要求，这一点得到了许多人的认同。高伟绅的杨律师表示：“客户通常要求我们能够覆盖多个司法管辖区，熟悉最新的监管措施，并且了解市场实务和技术。一直以来我们在前两点上都很强，但随着金融科技迅速发展，我们一直在努力增加市场方面的知识。”
“不断增长的需求带来了新的商机，但在遵守现行法律法规的基础上进行创新是一项颇具挑战性的任务。该领域的法律服务专业人士首先需要熟悉新技术，了解立法者和监管机构的主要关注点，从而找出关键的潜在法律问题，以便为客户提供具有商业洞见的正确建议。”刘律师说。
杨律师指出：“金融科技的新颖性意味着律师们经常需要就一些法律法规尚未有明确规定的问题提供咨询建议。”他列举了关于某些加密货币是否构成“财产”的辩论为例。他说：“许多定义通常是在还没有计算机之前就制定出来了，更不用说分布式账本了。对于律师来说，重要的是要了解监管意图并采取更具目的性的解释方法，因为在这样一个新的领域中，法律条文往往是不够的。”
丁律师对杨律师的观点表示赞同：“律师必须适应金融科技行业的快速增长，方法是持续关注行业的发展，研究全球监管框架，并与相关监管机构就此进行讨论。”
他还表示：“金融科技律师必须了解行业，还需要了解现行的法律法规，同时具有预判监管趋势的能力。”
Fintech Nation
China is becoming one of the world’s key countries for the development of financial technology, and lawyers are set to reap the benefits.
Fintech has quickly become one of the fastest growing sectors in China, the country has also become the largest fintech market in the world.
According to an Accenture analysis report this year, global investment in fintech ventures more than doubled in 2018, reaching a whopping $55.3 billion. China is the main contributor to this significant growth - the value of deals in China increased nine-fold to $25.5 billion in 2018, accounting for 46 percent of all fintech investments that year.
Buzzwords such as “blockchain”, “cloud technology” and “big data” can be seen everywhere.
“Electronic payments, AI, cloud computing, big data and blockchain are being discussed regularly,” says Jack Ding, partner of Duan & Duan. “Companies from traditional industries have been exploring ways to apply blockchain technology into their daily operation. For example, in retail, such technology may be able to accelerate efficiently integration of supply chain, logistics and transaction.”
“The use of new technologies to upgrade or even disrupt the existing fintech products and services, deploying better cloud infrastructures and achieving more robust security system are all hot topics in fintech,” says Barbara Li, partner and head of Norton Rose Fulbright’s China Fintech and TMT practice.
“We expect that the fintech industry will deploy more emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, big data, cloud computing and Internet of Things, in developing new products and business models, providing wider coverage of financial services to SME businesses and building up a robust security system,” Li adds.
The rapid rise of fintech has also translated into a surge in the demand of legal services.
Legal and regulatory analysis is usually carried out before launching a business or a product. Merger and acquisition activities for fintech related assets are also becoming more active, as people have realised that this area holds great potential, says Kimi Liu, counsel of Clifford Chance’s Banking and Finance practice.
GOVERNMENT PLANS
And as the government continues to explore the regulatory paradigm of fintech, lawyers serve as navigators for companies in this fast-changing sector.
According to Ding, licensed financial service providers have been investing heavily in fintech with assistance from lawyers. However, start-ups and middle-sized companies are “less receptive of engaging attorneys to help guide their businesses” which have led to the arrest of founders of the companies due to violation of laws and regulations.
One of the many ongoing legal discussions surrounding fintech is the boundary of financial regulation, i.e., to what extent fintech activities will fall within the scope of financial regulatory oversight. “With the scandal of P2P lending, the PRC government will definitely not tolerate any offering of financial services that is ‘packaged’ as new technology which operates outside the current regulatory framework,” says Liu.
In August, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) released the Fintech Development Plan (2019—2021) to outline guidelines, basic principles, development targets, key tasks and supportive measures for the development of fintech in the next three years.
The three-year plan aims to improve the quality of financial services, strengthen regulation on technology-driven innovations, and curb financial risks.
“The Plan is the first holistic policy issued by PBoC on fintech. It provides a clear road map and top-down guidance on developing the fintech industry in China,” Li tells ALB China.
She continues to explain that the newly released plan emphases on the importance of using emerging technologies such as AI, big data, cloud computing, virtual identification to empower the financial services. Fintech is encouraged to be used in achieving financial efficiency, risk control and effective regulation.
“The Plan indicates the need for adopting the ‘sandbox’ approach to encourage innovations and allow flexi-bilities in promoting and rolling out new fintech products and services,” says Li.
She also notes that one aspect particularly worth noting is that the Plan highlights the importance of cybersecu-rity and personal information protection in the financial sector. In order to achieve that, the Plan urges that security plans and cybersecurity contingency plans to be formulated and enacted, financial personal information shall be protected by way of building security rules, using accredited security products and technol-ogies, and conducting regular auditing and security assessments.
“This balanced approach appears to resonate the PBoC’s consistent position that it is important to manage the risk while using emerging technologies to develop new fintech products and services,” says Li. “This will no doubt bring opportunities as well as challenges for lawyers.”
“I believe that PBoC is very open to learning from other countries and is trying to set up a more effective regime to tackle relevant issues domestically,” says Ding from Duan & Duan. “I am in favour of a stable and transparent legal frame-work governing the fintech industry. This may ensure the healthy and stable devel-opment of the industry.”
“As PBoC has pointed out in the plan, fintech is innovation of financial service that is driven by technology. Therefore, the essence of fintech is still financial service, but with technology innovation, the presentation of fintech could be quite different from the traditional financial services, introducing new issues and risks to tackle,” says Liu.
Li notes that the PBoC has been reported to speed up the process of developing a digital currency, which echoes its three-year plan. Ding, on the other hand, is interested to see whether there would be any new regulations introduced to regulate other cryptocurrencies; and whether overseas trading platforms for digital assets could be legally and domestically operated in China.
“It is expected that PRC government will issue fundamental fintech regula-tion to set out the key parameters, but this seems to be a medium-term plan,” says Liu. “Therefore, striking a balance between regulation and development is still worth further consideration.”
In addition to the fintech development plan, Clifford Chance’s Partner of Banking and Finance practice, Terry Yang, raised an equally important issue: the evolution of regulations over data in China, particularly the treatment of cross-border data transfer.
“This is particularly relevant for inter-national players seeking to access the PRC fintech market, where the increasingly extraterritorial reach of data security requirements in all jurisdictions is likely to require market participants to spend significant effort to ensure compliance,” says Yang.
“A legislative process has recently been announced to update China’s data protection framework,” he adds. “Many observers expect the current high-level rules to be worked out in a way that may resemble the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on key points, which would also have an important influence on the development of personal data-driven fintech innovation.”
CLIENT NEEDS
To meet the clients’ changing needs, law firms are adjusting their business strategies. Li says that with the continued growth momentum of the fintech industry, her firm has been approached by a number of financial institutions, data analytics companies, PE investors and technology disrupters who are entering into or expanding their footholds in the fintech market.
“Meanwhile, risk management is also a major concern for those clients to address issues in designing and developing new fintech products and services,” she reveals. “We have assisted many of our clients in analysing and mitigating the regulatory, financial, cybersecurity, data privacy risks.”
“Increasing demand brings with new business opportunities but dealing with the innovation that is based on the compliance with current laws and regulations is a challenging task,” says Liu. “Legal service professionals in this area first need to familiarise themselves with the new technologies and understand the primary concerns of legislators and regulators, so that they can figure out the key underlying legal issues to provide commercial and correct advice to clients.”
“The novelty of fintech means that lawyers are often advising on issues where law and regulation are still trying to catch up,” says Yang, citing the debates on whether certain cryptocurrencies constituted “property” as an example. “The definitions were often developed before we even had computers, much less distributed ledgers,” he says. “It is important for lawyers to understand regulatory intention as well as adopt a more purposive approach to interpretation, as the letter of the law will often not be adequate in such a new area.”
Ding echoes his view: “Attorneys must adapt to the fast-growing speed of fintech industry, by continuing monitoring industry development, researching on global regulatory framework and discussing the matter with relevant regulators.”
To contact the editorial team, please email ALBEditor@thomsonreuters.com.
