The Fifth High-Level Forum on Financial Technology and Digital Economy Development was Successfully Held

On May 25, 2025, the fifth High-Level Forum on Financial Technology and Digital Economy Development, hosted by BNUBS, was successfully held in Yingdong Academic Hall. The forum was themed "Artificial Intelligence Applications in the Financial Sector". Han Xu, Deputy Director of the Office of the Financial Commission of the Communist Party of China Beijing Municipal Committee; Li Jianjun, Vice President of the Central University of Finance and Economics; Guan Tao, Global Chief Economist of BOC International Securities Limited; Gai Jianfei, Managing Director of Jinghao Capital; Zhang Yifei, Deputy Dean and Secretary-General of Beijing Institute of Financial Technology; Liu Xiaogui, Deputy Director of the Financial Technology Department of the Cloud Computing and Big Data Research Institute of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology; Liu Yuzhen, Professor of the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University; and Professor Tahir Nisar of the Southampton Business School attended the forum. Nearly 150 faculty and student representatives from the university participated. Jiang Jie, Associate Secretary of the Party Committee and Associate Dean of BNUBS, presided over the opening ceremony.

Speech by Han Xu, Deputy Director of the Office of the Financial Commission of the Communist Party of China Beijing Municipal Committee

In his speech, Han Xu first explored the concepts, boundaries, and scopes among tech finance, financial technology, and the digital economy, introducing Beijing's practical measures in building a global digital economy benchmark city and actively constructing a digital financial system compatible with digital economic development. Regarding the application of artificial intelligence in the financial sector, he emphasized seizing the opportunities brought by AI development, systematically promoting the digital and intelligent transformation of financial institutions, fully recognizing the potential risks and challenges of large model applications, and focusing on cultivating composite talents proficient in financial theory and practice, as well as cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and blockchain. The Municipal Financial Affairs Office will continue to support Beijing universities like BNUBS in strengthening the cultivation of professional talents in disciplines related to financial and technological integration, encouraging enterprises to jointly train composite talents with universities and research institutions, enhancing the supply of high-level talents, and building a highland for digital financial talent cultivation.

Speech by Sun Zhijun, Secretary of the Party Committee of BNUBS

Sun Zhijun reviewed the forum's history and thanked the Financial Commission of Beijing, university leaders, and extensive support from academia and industry. He pointed out that artificial intelligence is reshaping the ecology and landscape of the financial industry, representing not only a tool revolution but also a subversion of thinking patterns. The future direction lies in how to inject stronger momentum into the strategic goal of building a financial power through AI. He introduced the basic situation of BNUBS and its reforms and explorations based on the government-industry-university-research cooperation model in cultivating new-era financial technology talents. BNUBS will continue to cooperate with multiple parties to continuously improve the quality and capacity of independent talent cultivation, training high-quality talent teams familiar with financial market development directions and AI frontiers for the goal of a financial power.

The first half session of keynote speeches was presided over by Jiang Jie, Associate Dean of BNUBS.

Guan Tao, Global Chief Economist of BOC International Securities Limited, delivered a speech titled "Using Institutional Opening-up to Prevent and Defuse External Shocks". The current economy faces external uncertainties and pressure from new and old kinetic energy transformation. Trump's economic and trade policies have brought huge challenges to Sino-US trade, and China stabilizes the economy through a series of policies such as deepening reforms, expanding opening-up, and implementing proactive macro policies. Institutional opening-up in finance is a key strategy for China to address external challenges. The basic connotations of financial institutional opening-up include four aspects: high-level, all-around, behind-the-border, and symmetric. Promoting institutional opening-up in the financial sector helps overcome the "original sin" of emerging markets, prevent financial decoupling risks, and strengthen internal capabilities. It should adhere to the principles of putting China first, facing the international community, basing on the local context, facing the market, overall promotion, and prioritizing safety.

Gai Jianfei, Managing Director of Jinghao Capital, spoke on "AI Applications in Investment Banking". The speech pointed out that artificial intelligence is widely used in investment banking, assisting in prospectus writing, merger and acquisition pricing, due diligence, real-time identification of transactions and accounts at risk of money laundering and fraud, improving customer service levels in positions like investment advisors, and conducting quantitative trading. The application and development of AI in global investment banks are unbalanced. In the next five years, AI may complete most of the work in writing legal documents such as prospectuses and significantly improve the efficiency of investment bank due diligence and mergers and acquisitions. Investment banks with AI expertise may emerge. After 2030, the impact of AI on investment banks will be more profound, possibly bringing industry changes, but the specific impact is difficult to predict.

Zhang Yifei, Deputy Dean and Secretary-General of Beijing Institute of Financial Technology, delivered a speech on "Global Think Tank Research Report Platform and Its Vertical Application in Large Models". Large models have had a huge impact on social productivity and will become the engine of the next industrial revolution. Large model applications in the financial sector are progressing rapidly, but new security issues need attention. The speech focused on the application of large models in global think tank research report platforms, which are databases integrating top global think tank articles and reports. Large models greatly improve the efficiency of analyzing think tank articles and reports, creating in-depth industry research reports to provide strategic consulting for enterprises and government departments. The think tank AI platform built on the above platform can real-time capture and analyze global think tank reports, helping clients obtain different perspectives on hot topics. More auxiliary tools will be developed in the future.

Liu Xiaogui, Deputy Director of the Financial Technology Department of the Cloud Computing and Big Data Research Institute of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, shared the theme "Technical Application Research and Related Work Introduction of Large Models in the Financial Sector". It mainly discussed the application paths of large models in finance, the work progress of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology in financial large models, and related industry-finance cooperation. The 2024 bidding data for financial industry large models showed that application scenario projects accounted for the highest proportion, with the banking industry leading in large model applications, the securities industry investing more in infrastructure, and the insurance industry having a balanced investment distribution. Large model technology significantly improves financial business operation efficiency but faces the "impossible trinity" problem of specialization, generalization, and cost. The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology specifically proposed a technical roadmap from understanding the current situation of the financial industry to model capability optimization and sorted out four levels of large model applications in financial institutions. It also introduced the "Jinxintong" 2+3 business system, emphasized the importance of industry-finance cooperation, and introduced the National Industry-Finance Cooperation Platform and FALS Program, demonstrating its achievements in promoting the quality and efficiency of industry-finance cooperation.

The second half session of keynote speeches was presided over by Hu Conghui, Associate Dean of BNUBS.

Li Jianjun, Vice President of the Central University of Finance and Economics, delivered a keynote speech on "Artificial Intelligence and Financial Development". With the rapid development of AI technology, we are standing at the forefront of the fourth AI wave. Artificial intelligence is widely used in financial fields such as investment research, asset management, customer service marketing, intelligent risk control, and AI agents, but may bring issues like data bias, copyright problems, privacy leaks, ethical issues, and AI fraud. AI has impacted traditional education models, requiring the reshaping of educational forms and methods. Universities face challenges such as faculty capability gaps, insufficient practical scenarios, and absence of ethical education. In the future, talents with dual capabilities of using AI and governing AI should be cultivated. Universities should consider how to adapt to the fast-developing trend of AI in terms of training programs, curriculum design, educational methods, and concept changes.

Tahir M Nisar of the Southampton Business School, UK, gave a speech titled "AI Frontiers in Finance: Personalization, Prediction, and Performance", exploring three frontier topics of AI applications in finance: First, personalization—AI can customize financial services based on individual behaviors, scenarios, and preferences. Second, prediction—AI applications can improve prediction capabilities in risk management, fraud detection, market analysis, etc., enhancing financial service capabilities. Third, performance—applying AI can improve the operational efficiency of financial institutions, reduce operating costs, and enhance performance.

Liu Yuzhen, Professor of the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, delivered a speech on "AI in Financial Decision-making", introducing high-quality academic research achievements related to AI in finance. Using AI, individual investors' investment personalities can be scored, their behavioral genes understood, and personalized asset allocations tailored. Generative AI can carry out more targeted financial investor education. Analyzing music emotions using machine learning methods helps predict asset prices. Combining analysts with AI can produce incremental contribution synergy. Large models can more efficiently identify emotions in financial texts.

Sun Yunchuan, Professor of BNUBS, introduced the "Multi-Agent Collaborative Platform for Securities Analysis and Trading". An intelligent agent (AI Agent) is an intelligent system that imitates human behavior, possessing capabilities such as perception, interaction, memory, and thinking planning to execute tasks, far surpassing large language models in knowledge updating, complex tasks, and avoiding false illusions. It has begun to be gradually applied in the financial field. Professor Sun introduced the team-developed trading agent system for the A-share market, which constructs a multi-agent collaborative trading system by referencing the real operational processes of financial institutions. Backtesting results show that the trading system achieved an annualized return of 25% during the backtest period.

In this forum, industry elites and experts gathered to discuss the frontier applications and development trends of AI in finance, providing many valuable ideas for the future development of financial technology. As the host, BNUBS will continue to face national strategic needs, forge ahead in the construction of financial technology and digital economy disciplines, talent cultivation, and scientific research. Taking this forum as an opportunity, it will further deepen cooperation with all parties, continuously inject strong momentum into the high-quality development of China's financial technology and digital economy, cultivate more high-quality composite talents adapted to era needs, and strive unremittingly to achieve the goal of a financial power.

Contributed by: Xiang Hongyu

Edited by: Jiang Jie

Reviewed by: Sun Zhijun