Less than 20% of Hong Kong adults ‘understand' fintech apps: survey

The majority of the city use such apps for personal finance.

Only 17% in Hong Kong are confident that they have a good understanding of what fintech apps are, according to a Visa study.

This is despite 93% of the city using such apps for personal finance management, with more than one in five (22%) claiming that they use the apps 80% or more of the time. Professionals aged 25 to 34 are the heaviest users, comprising 34% of the group.

Security appears to be a problem as well, as the survey showed that users have not proactively taken multiple security measures to protect their personal data privacy in the past 12 months. Only 39% have checked whether the website URL was legitimate when keying in personal details, whilst only 29% reset their password at least once a year.

On the other hand, more than two-thirds (68%) agree that new fintech can help them better manage their personal finances due to perceived benefits, such as speed and flexibility (35%), lower cost or cheaper deals (19%) and convenient access of consolidated financial data with Open Banking facilitated by API (14%). More than half (53%) are willing to try out new fintech products and services.

Given the low understanding, almost half (49%) of respondents say that financial education becomes more important as technology advances, said Visa Hong Kong and Macau general manager Maaike Steinebach. In order to promote financial literacy in the city, Visa has been sponsoring the Hong Kong Liberal Studies-Financial Literacy Championship Online Quiz for six years now, she added.

The competition aims to better equip students with practical money skills, with updated focus on new financial technologies, such as virtual banking, open data, and personal data protection.