On May 16, 2026, the 6th High-Level Forum on FinTech and Digital Economy Development, hosted by Beijing Normal University Business School (BNUBS), took place in the Academic Hall of the Yingdong Building. Under the theme Digital and Intelligent Empowerment for Building a Strong Financial Nation: In-depth Integration of Digital Finance and the Real Economy, the forum gathered a host of distinguished experts and scholars from academia and industry. Speakers included Fan Wenzhong, Member of the Party Leadership Group and Vice President of Beijing Academy of Social Sciences; Yu Haohan, General Manager of the Data Management and Application Department, Bank of Shanghai; Huang Butian, Founder and Chairman of Hangzhou Yunxiang Network Technology Co., Ltd., and Lixing Distinguished Professor at Hangzhou Dianzi University; Han Liyan, Researcher and Doctoral Supervisor at Beijing Yanqi Lake Institute of Applied Mathematics; Liu Yue, Associate Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University; and Wu Yanran, Professor at BNUBS. Qi Yudong, Dean of BNUBS, delivered an opening address. Jiang Jie, Associate Dean of BNUBS, and Sun Yunchuan, Director of the Financial Big Data Center, presided over the morning and afternoon sessions respectively. Over 100 faculty and student representatives attended the event.

In his opening remarks, Dean Qi Yudong reviewed the forum’s development and extended gratitude to the Beijing Municipal Financial Work Committee, university leaders and all peers from academia and industry for their long-term support. He noted that the theme of this forum responds to China’s national strategy of building a strong financial nation and echoes the mission of advancing the in-depth integration of digital technologies and industrial transformation. He introduced BNUBS’s disciplinary achievements over the past nearly half a century. Particularly in the digital and intelligent era, the School has established a three-in-one financial talent training system featuring demand-driven development, interdisciplinary integration and independent innovation. Dean Qi stated that BNUBS will continue to deepen cooperation with all parties, improve the quality of independent talent cultivation, and strive to foster high-caliber interdisciplinary talents who possess a thorough understanding of financial markets and master cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence for the development of a strong financial nation.

Qi Yudong, Dean of BNUBS, delivering a speech

Fan Wenzhong, Member of the Party Leadership Group and Vice President of Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, delivered a speech entitled AI Political Economy and Intelligent New Productive Forces. He pointed out that the core driving forces of future finance lie in big data, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology. Having evolved from a passive tool into a quasi-laborer and a subject with limited liabilities, AI has become a carrier of new productive forces. AI is reshaping the three major elements of productive forces: the category of laborers has expanded to include AI and intelligent agents; the means of labor are becoming increasingly anthropomorphic and intelligent; and the objects of labor present new characteristics such as infinity and non-excludability. The labor market will be divided into two parts: the unlimited labor supply provided by AI and personalized demands led by human beings. Humans will transform from direct producers into supervisors and managers. Profound adjustments will take place in production relations. The relationship between humans and AI will shift from employment to supervision and collaboration. Collaboration between machines is expected to break corporate boundaries, and the distribution mode may gradually move toward the principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". However, the premise is to overcome the problems of limited resources and wealth inequality, and realize the socialized distribution of dividends brought by AI. New production factors include data, computing power and energy, among which tokens will become the most important bulk commodity in the future. Business organizations will be divided into two major types: human-managed organizations and AI-operated organizations. The identification of AI status shall follow ethical rules and clarify the attribution of responsibilities. Currently, we are in a period of historic transformation. The future depends on whether we can make institutional arrangements to turn AI into a welfare ladder leading to communism, rather than a potential threat caused by inadequate systems.

Yu Haohan, General Manager of the Data Management and Application Department of the Head Office of Bank of Shanghai, gave a speech titled Ontology: The Cornerstone of Data Governance and Knowledge Engineering in the Era of Large Models. He held that there is an inherent conflict between the probabilistic nature of large models and the requirement for certainty in banking businesses. The introduction of ontology, which adopts formalized modeling of entities, rules, processes and actions, can combine strong causal logic with probabilistic generation, so as to build AI systems that are credible, interpretable, traceable and auditable. Bank of Shanghai has adopted ontology to build a model for due diligence reports and achieved stable results. He stressed that the key to the implementation of AI lies in institutional and organizational reform. It is necessary to design incentive systems, build security sandboxes, and foster a professional talent team equipped with interdisciplinary capabilities in technology and business. The combination of enterprise-level ontology models with big data and artificial intelligence technologies is expected to create a risk early warning system comparable to a "prophet", realizing the transformation from experience-driven operation to data-and-intelligence-driven operation.

Huang Butian, Founder and Chairman of Hangzhou Yunxiang Network Technology Co., Ltd. and Lixing Distinguished Professor of Hangzhou Dianzi University, delivered a speech entitled New Financial Infrastructure Based on Blockchain. He mainly introduced the practical achievements of his team in applying blockchain and artificial intelligence technologies to the construction of national financial infrastructure, research and development of key technologies, talent training and the field of international digital finance. The team has deeply participated in the construction of core infrastructure for digital renminbi, the Multiple Central Bank Digital Currency Bridge, the registration of warehouse receipts for bulk commodities, and the issuance of digital bonds, among other projects. The team has undertaken a number of national key research and development programs, teamed up with universities to make breakthroughs in multiple key technologies, and developed a series of core first-edition software products. Meanwhile, the team focuses on Web3, compliant stablecoins and the on-chain placement of Real World Assets (RWA), and builds regulatory systems to address risks on the blockchain. The team allows postgraduate students to fully participate in real projects, so as to cultivate interdisciplinary compound talents.

Fan Wenzhong;           Yu Haohan

Huang Butian;         Jiang Jie

Han Liyan, Researcher and Doctoral Supervisor of Beijing Yanqi Lake Institute of Applied Mathematics, presented a speech themed Financial Data Space. He pointed out that data has become the fourth major factor of production for economic growth. The circulation of data relies on three major approaches: over-the-counter trading, data exchanges and data spaces. The core is to implement the separation of the three rights of data, namely the right of legal possession, the right of operation and the right of ownership, prioritizing the right of use over the right of ownership. Trusted data spaces can solve the pain points of data such as easy duplication, difficult traceability and delayed processing. They ensure that original data never leave the designated domain, remain available while invisible, and are controllable and measurable, with the whole-process credibility guaranteed by technologies including blockchain. Combining scenarios such as sci-tech finance, digital supply chain finance, large model training for banks, industrial internet and aerospace data, he explained the practical value of data spaces. He also mentioned that data spaces are evolving toward Version 3.0 trusted intelligent agent spaces, which will provide crucial support for economic development and financial digitalization during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

Liu Yue, Associate Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University, delivered a speech titled Digital and Intelligent Empowerment for Building a Strong Financial Nation: Mechanisms and Constraints of Recording Data Assets on Financial Statements. He noted that the scale of China's digital economy has tripled over the past decade, while data resources have not been fully recognized as assets in financial statements. After data was listed as a factor of production in 2019, the Interim Provisions on Accounting Treatment of Enterprise Data Resources issued by the Ministry of Finance in 2023 has laid an institutional foundation for recording data assets in financial statements. Relevant event study results show that the capital market yields significantly positive excess returns for enterprises with abundant data resources and strong data capabilities, and the long-term value of such enterprises has increased remarkably.This effect is more prominent among enterprises subject to strong financing constraints. However, the actual progress of recording data resources in financial statements is slow, which is mainly restricted by unclear confirmation of property rights, difficulties in pricing and excessively high compliance costs. Among non-listed enterprises, urban investment platforms show higher enthusiasm for recording data assets, aiming to revitalize assets and enhance credit standing. He suggested clarifying data property rights, unifying accounting standards, establishing a tiered and classified pricing system, and reducing governance and audit costs. The dividends brought by data assetization have just emerged, and data assets will be fully integrated into the financial system covering mortgage, securitization and other businesses in the future.

Wu Yanran, Professor of BNUBS, gave a speech entitled Non-financial Data Illuminating Blind Spots in Traditional Credit Rating. Centering on the background of China-U.S. trade frictions, the speech discussed existing problems in China's credit rating industry, including conflicts of interest, inflated ratings and lagging rating adjustments. Restricted by charging models and relevant policies, domestic rating agencies generally assign bond ratings concentrated at AAA and AA+ levels without reasonable distribution. Cases including Evergrande Group, Vanke Group and Jiaozhou Urban Investment of Qingdao all reflect serious delays in rating adjustments. Combining non-financial data, financial indicators and macroeconomic indicators, his team adopted seven machine learning algorithms to predict credit spreads and convert the results into credit ratings. The research results show that incorporating non-financial data improves the model performance by 25%, and seven of the top ten indicators in terms of importance are non-financial data. This model outperforms international rating agencies in prediction accuracy and logical consistency, ranking first among seven or eight major domestic rating institutions. As a national key research and development achievement, this technology has been put into operation or will soon be launched at China Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation Limited as well as ten securities firms including CITIC Securities and Guotai Haitong Securities, and will operate on a demonstration basis for three years.

 Han Liyan;             Liu Yue

Wu Yanran;           Sun Yunchuan

This forum has provided numerous valuable ideas and insights for the future development of FinTech and the digital economy. BNUBS will continue to respond to national strategic needs and forge ahead in disciplinary development, talent cultivation and scientific research. Taking the successful holding of this forum as an opportunity, the School will further deepen cooperation with all parties, inject strong impetus into the high-quality development of China's FinTech and digital economy, cultivate more high-caliber interdisciplinary talents adapted to the requirements of the times, and make unremitting efforts to achieve the goal of building a strong financial nation.

Group Photo

Contributed by Department of Finance

Edited by Xiang Hongyu

Reviewed by Jiang Jie