![[podcast] Jan Bellens on fintech trends in Asia and emerging markets](https://tearsheet.co/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/16697129658_c1d748c0f5_c.jpg)
Jan Bellens is banking and capital markets leader for EY in emerging markets and Asia Pacific.
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Jan Bellens, EY[/caption]
He’s tasked with a role at his firm that is part analyst, business consultant, and trend watcher. He speaks to his partners, teams, and financial services clients in emerging markets, with his ear to the ground to best understand how EY can help and serve its clients. It’s this high-level and global perspective that I was most interested in chatting with Jan.
Jan sees an Asian phenomenon — born out in his firm’s Global Consumer Bank Survey. In some of the asia markets like Indonesia and China, he and his team see strong eagerness from consumers and businesses to engage with new financial firms, models, and technologies.Much more so than in developed markets.
He's tracking his firm's Fintech Adoption Index — fintech adoption in quite strong in bigger cities like Singapore and Hong Kong. In mainland China, Jan believes fintech providers do pose a serious challenge to some of the smaller banks. It’s a reality — at different paces and speeds across different markets and all of EY’s clients are looking at how to address this.
Jan has a unique geographic view and not one we’ve given enough attention to on this podcast — Asia is such a diverse market and one that’s embracing of fintech. It’s interesting to hear what large incumbent financial institutions are planning for their futures. One thing that’s top of mind in the Asian market, according to Jan, is the role of the ecosystem. How will regulators approach this going forward. Are rules going to be loosened so that banks can start to improvise a bit more or will regulators turn their sites to startups and force them to comply with similar rules facing traditional financial services firms?

Listen to the FULL episode
More resources
- EY (Jan's company)
- EY Fintech Adoption Index (EY surveyed more than 10,000 digitally active people in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States to better understand the overall rate of FinTech adoption, which users are adopting which products and the outlook for future usage.)