Being a FinTech startup in Hong Kong: the good and the challenge

Juwan Lee, Founder and CEO of NexChange: uniting the global financial community, and enabling professionals to reach their full potential.

Juwan has nearly 30 years of financial service experience managing portfolios on behalf of hedge funds, proprietary trading and asset managers. Before NexChange, he spent numerous years at JP Morgan in a variety of roles from principal investments to heading equity within the asset management division. He was an early 90's institutional investor in companies like Netscape and Yahoo.

Can FinTech be exciting?

Juwan says it is a great time to be involved in FinTech, as startups can disrupt parts of businesses that large financial institutions typically dominate. Spending most of his career managing portfolios in finance, it has been an exciting journey for him to be able to create a tangible business and change the way financial professionals communicate now.

Cybersecurity

With cyberattacks taking place more frequently and becoming more complex, Nexchange is very interested in promoting cybersecurity for financial services.  “Financial organizations need to stay ahead of the curve” notes Juwan.  

Being a FinTech startup in Hong Kong: the good and the challenge

Juwan thinks that Hong Kong is an ideal place to start up because of its complete financial institution ecosystem apart from serving as the gateway to China. However, the life of a startup is never easy.  “One of the biggest challenge for FinTech startups in Hong Kong,” says Juwan, “is moving from an idea to where you have a proof of concept in terms of product traction and monetization that institutional investors believe in.”  

Traditional banking institutions are starting to have an eye on fintech, and Juwan admits that banks tend to have an advantage where scale is required. But startups have an advantage in areas where it makes no sense for large institutions to embark on that it maybe a niche or not profitable for larger organizations.

From his experience so far, Juwan has some advice to share with those who are looking to get into FinTech:

There will many startup entering in the FinTech arena, but only a very few will be successful. Solving a pain point will not be enough. One has to truly understand the competitive environment and find the right people to partner with early.

Also see how to find the right people to be your co-founder