Ni hao from Shanghai!

The Institute of International Finance (IIF) Future Leader class of 2019 met in China last week. It couldn't be a more fitting location and interesting times given the flaring US-China trade tensions and the ongoing global integration, and liberalization, of China's economy and financial system.

There were a few things that really surprised me about Shanghai and China. First, given the city's huge size of about 26 million people, it is surprisingly quiet. Many mopeds appeared electric and honking is forbidden – quite a contrast to Western cities like New York. And second, it's amazing how technology is already so closely knitted into people's lives – even when there is still a lot of poverty in China. Access to financial services is astonishingly digital - most people use WeChat and Alibaba to pay for goods and services. In fact, Tencent's WeBank currently serves around 100 million customers through only about 2000 employees. Furthermore, mobile payments handled by third party platforms were about 40 times the amount processed in the US in 2017 - amounting to about USD 15 trillion. It shows how far integrated platforms can go and how strong such a value proposition can be for financial services customers. In a similar vein, this is also a key topic for the insurance industry, and one that my Swiss Re Institute colleagues have shed light on in a great recent publication on digital ecosystems.    

The get-together was a unique opportunity to learn how other institutions handle these paradigm shifts differently. Super interesting discussions were complemented by trying out some of the local food – the dumplings were fantastic! Unfortunately there's only so much you can do and discuss during a few days. This makes our second reunion in Washington DC in October all the more valuable.