There’s no question that financial services are for everyone—or rather, they should be. But even today, and including in more developed countries, there are large numbers of people without reliable access to financial services. According to the World Bank’s Global Financial Inclusion project, almost 40% of the world’s adult population is still unbanked. Many more lack access to credit, or don’t have the opportunity to invest the savings that they work so hard to draw together.
The latest generation of financial technology has helped. With mobile phones and some simple services, millions across Asia and Africa have been able to make remote payments and money transfers for the first time, while elsewhere cutting-edge machine learning is being put to use in controlling risks, boosting efficiencies, and even doling out investment and financial management advice to people who otherwise would never have had access to human advisors.
But more technology alone doesn’t guarantee more equal opportunities. And that is the problem that Ant Financial wants to solve.
On January 19, Ant Financial will be hosting its Ant Technology Exploration Conference (ATEC) in Silicon Valley, an event to introduce to the US and global audiences its work in “BASIC”: blockchain, AI, security, IoT, and cloud computing, and to lay out how those efforts can help to construct a more egalitarian financial system.
Ant’s Vice President and Chief Architect, Hu Xi, will be headlining the event, speaking directly to the company’s plans for how to enable financial equality at a global scale. Vice President and Chief Data Scientist Alan Qi will be on hand to discuss Ant’s work in AI, while Vice President and Head of Ant Technologies Lab Geoff Jiang will be speaking on Ant’s experiments with a blockchain platform. Chief Architect of Infrastructure Charles He will be addressing how to build basic infrastructure, and Ant’s experience doing just that in the world’s largest consumer finance market.
And they will be joined by a full lineup of other experts, scholars, investors, and media people from the fintech field, including Turing Award winner Prof. Silvio Micali from MIT; Hans Tung of GGV Capital; Emi Yoshikawa of the blockchain-based global payments platform Ripple; Bodhi Prediction Market founder Lin Xiahong; JPMorgan’s Head of Digital Channels, Umar Farooq; and PingWest cofounder and CEO Thomas Luo.
There is vast potential for change in each of the fields—blockchain, AI, security, IoT, and cloud computing—and if they can be made to work together, then the financial industry stands to undergo a once-in-a-century transformation.
And, just maybe, realize the promise of creating more equal opportunity for financial services the world over.
Ant Technology Exploration Conference (ATEC)
Date & Time: January 19, 1-6 PM
Location: Santa Clara Convention Center, 5001 Great America Pkwy, Santa Clara, CA 95054
To register: http://bit.ly/2iQXn3A
Hosted by Ant Financial, co-hosted by PingWest
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