Following is the transcript of a CNBC interview with Ke Yin, CEO of Citic Securities International. The interview was broadcast on CNBC on 24 April 2017 at during CNBC's "Hong Kong versus Singapore" theme week.
All references must be sourced to a "CNBC Interview'.
Interviewed by Emily Tan, Correspondent, CNBC.
Ke Yin: Two cities, very very active in the financial industries - Singapore very solid in the talent for IT, for fixed income, and Hong Kong is very active in people having knowledge about China. So if you look at the two cities, I don't know, because the cities can compete against each other but they have different past, I mean futures.
Emily: Now you talk about Citic Securities, but you're amongst the many Chinese brokerages that are now here in Hong Kong. Most recently we had the listing of Guotai Junan in Hong Kong with their H-shares. Do you find it a very crowded space, operating a brokerage, a mainland brokerage, in Hong Kong?
Ke Yin: Over 40 branches set up in Hong Kong by Chinese investment banks - it's a little bit crowded in Hong Kong, a small city. But at the same time, China's too big, so Guotai Junan based in Shanghai, it brings some knowledge, some good news from Shanghai to Hong Kong, and you look at the Guang Fa, from Guangzhou, and if you look at other, like Henan Province, they have a Zhong Yuan securities, they build their branches in Hong Kong.
So if you look from the China side, if you look at the mainland side, they still have more and more investment banks that like to come to Hong Kong. But in the Hong Kong side we need to work together to see how we improve ourselves, to serve clients better.
Emily: Hong Kong has held the title of the world's top IPO market for the last two years. How has China brokerages, or Citic Securities, in particular, been able to grab a piece of that action?
Ke Yin: We're ranking, sometimes ranking number one or sometimes ranking in the top five because we have a lot of companies come to Hong Kong to do the IPO program. But not only this part. For long time term, you look at IPO is part of a financial market, it's not the whole.
So for the follow on, for the placement, for the data offering, so many many tourists Hong Kong can provide to offer the IPO. Citic Securities has now become, not only China's largest investment bank, but also will become the regional major player in this region. We help Southeast Asia countries to find investment opportunities in Hong Kong and in the mainland. So we've become one of the hubs of the investment banks.
Emily: With the rise in fintech, and economic integration throughout Asia, do you think that will threaten Hong Kong's status as a financial hub?
Ke Yin: Yeah, fintech is a hot topic, in recent years. And mainland China is very very pioneer in this area. You look at Tencent, you look at Baidu. Citic has a close relationship with all fintech, and I fully understand the China landscape of financial markets changed by fintech now. If you stayed in Beijing, you don't need to use the cash.
In a commercial bank, the ATM, ATM machine is almost out of date now in China. Hong Kong just the start of that. Hong Kong needs to pay more attention about this part - more investment in fintech because this relationship with the mainland is very strong link, so we cannot be just behind of the new development of China in fintech.