(Yicai Global) Sept. 24 -- The first Inclusion Fintech Conference, which describes itself as the world's top financial technology event, kicked off in Shanghai today

Organized under the aegis of Chinese fintech giant Ant Group and its affiliate Alipay, the three-day inaugural conference is being held at Huangpu Expo Park and is aimed at further developing Shanghai into a global fintech center.

In her keynote speech to the conference today, Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said “fintech is already playing an important part in slowing the spread of Covid-19. It has made contactless and cashless transactions very popular and very useful.

"Digital financial services also enable governments to quickly expand social safety nets and help facilitate direct payments between people, in turn accelerating economic recovery," she said.

Apart from a main forum, some 40 sub-forums will focus mainly on open banking financial ecology, technology-driven future insurance, shared intelligence, and green finance era themes that involve current hotspots such as artificial intelligence, blockchain and cloud computing. They will also host summits on smart computing and blockchain.

More than 500 influential professionals from around the world will participate via live online broadcasts. Apart from the IMF's Georgieva, they also include UN Deputy Secretary-General, UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner; Kevin Kelly, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and author of Out of Control; Wang Jian, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering; and Zhu Min, dean of the National Institute of Finance at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University.

A 13,000-square-meter exhibition hall will instruct meeting-goers in technology applications in finance, commerce and digital life.

The Smart Anti-Fraud Showcase in the Fintech Avenue showcases procedures for using smart risk control tech to safeguard user funds. A tester selects an identity and embarks on a simulated fraud scenario in which an AI detects the impending scam in milliseconds and sounds the alarm.

The authorities in Shanghai jointly issued a plan on Jan. 15 that put forward the goal of building the coastal city into a globally competitive fintech center within five years. The financial hub will bolster its tech research and development in core areas such as AI, blockchain, cloud computing, big data and fifth-generation wireless technology to this end.

Shanghai is steadily advancing 23 pilot fintech application projects, 19 of which, including those with China UnionPay, the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Bank of Communications, have finished testing and gone into operation. The trials encompass financing for medium, small and micro companies, optimization of livelihood services, and smart risk monitoring.

Editor: Ben Armour