Banks and fintechs have become turbo-charged collaborators
The confluence of artificial intelligence, and digital assets and currencies is turbo-charging the relationship between traditional banks and fintechs – and the growing premium on trust and human oversight will bring this ecosystem together more forcefully.
HSBC’s inaugural Asia Fintech Summit in Hong Kong on 21 August 2026 was an opportunity to celebrate this collaboration. It connected a diverse mix of fintech entrepreneurs, investors and financiers with each other and with our expertise.
Our belief is that we’re the nerve centre of the fintech economy – we invest, we partner, we advise, converting insight into execution.
And as Asia’s fintech market continues to accelerate, Hong Kong sits at the centre of the region’s tech story, future-proofed by supportive government policy.
Asia’s pivotal role
Hong Kong is where the Chinese mainland’s frontier-tech and commercial scale-tech meet global capital, and where companies can scale from early-stage funding to the public markets.
In 2025, the city was the world’s #1 IPO market, raising US$40 billion across 120 listings – and 2026 looks set to be even bigger, with 150-200 IPOs forecast.
Beyond Hong Kong, Asia accounts for about 20% of global fintech deals, with roughly US$1.7 billion raised across 150 transactions in 2025, according to Mordor Intelligence.
The research company also expects Asia’s fintech market to reach US$348.1 billion in value by 2031, with a compound annual growth rate of around 15.8%.
Our role at HSBC
The centrality of our role at HSBC in the banks-fintechs ecosystem is not only as a bank, but as a catalytic capital and service provider:
- We bank fintechs as the only bank with a global Innovation Banking franchise, backed by the size and scale of HSBC
- We partner strategically with fintechs across our tech stack
- We invest in fintechs through HSBC Ventures
- Our Capital Markets and Advisory franchise supports the entrepreneur vision to become a reality: we can support the full start-up journey from pre-IPO through to listing, follow-ons, convertibles, and liability management
Building trust
Essentially, we’re here for more than the headline deal. It’s not only about the products and solutions we provide, but the strength of our network and how we connect clients, capital and ideas in ways that create long-term value.
HSBC Access, for example, is a new proposition for ultra-high-net-worth and family office clients in Hong Kong, giving access to institutional-grade solutions, exclusive investment opportunities and specialist insights.
Eligible clients can invest in selected technology and start-up companies served by HSBC Innovation Banking, alongside opportunities sourced from across our Corporate and Institutional Banking and Innovation Banking businesses. This supports our ambition to be the #1 wealth manager in Asia and the Middle East.
But what remains the most crucial element is trust.
In the era of AI, the notion of ‘personal taste’ is talked about as the human differentiator. Now we are seeing this evolve into 'high-taste' – when the power of AI is combined with human oversight, grounding real user context with trusted standards.
The winners will be the operators that earn the most trust and, in that context, our ambition is to be the most trusted bank globally, putting customers at the heart of everything we do.