Reported by Cao Yuan, 21st Century Business Herald, Shenzhen
China’s financial technology is entering its 2.0 phase, accelerating its transformation from “single technology output” to “industry standard setter”.
“From the perspective of (overseas) customer demand, compliance, security, and sustainability are common requirements. Overseas financial institutions generally hope to quickly deploy systems using mature SaaS models, balancing regulatory requirements with business efficiency,” said Chen Dangyang, Chairman of OneConnect Financial Technology.
Rooted in domestic markets such as Shenzhen and starting from the close financial interaction between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, Hong Kong serves as the “window” for going overseas, with the first stop being the Southeast Asian market. Along this route, financial technology companies represented by OneConnect are continuously exporting technology, services, and standards to overseas markets.
Currently, overseas business has become a new growth point for OneConnect. As of June 30, 2025, the company has expanded its overseas business to 20 countries and regions, serving 214 clients.
Recently, Chen Dangyang, Chairman and CEO of OneConnect, was interviewed by the 21st Century Business Herald to interpret OneConnect’s role positioning, overseas layout strategy, and its latest explorations in “artificial intelligence + finance”.
Chen Dangyang, Chairman and CEO of OneConnect (Photo provided by the interviewee)
Core Positioning: “Core Technology Output Platform of Ping An Group”
21st Century Business Herald: Currently, OneConnect’s core positioning is as “the core technology output platform of Ping An Group”. How does it collaborate with Ping An Group? What manifestations does the “AI in ALL” strategy proposed by Ping An Group have on OneConnect?
Chen Dangyang:OneConnect is the core platform for the external output of Ping An Group’s technological capabilities and an important bearer of the group’s “AI in ALL” strategy. The group has accumulated over thirty years of experience in AI and financial risk control, and OneConnect’s mission is to productize and platformize these intelligent capabilities, forming commercially viable and replicable technological solutions.
By promoting the “Five Intelligences” strategy of intelligent marketing, intelligent services, intelligent operations, intelligent management, and intelligent business, OneConnect will deeply integrate AI with business, achieving intelligent upgrades across the “full link, full scene, and full process”.
For example, in the banking sector, we have launched AI Agent digital employees, deeply embedding intelligent capabilities into core financial processes such as customer service, marketing, and credit risk control, doubling marketing efficiency and accelerating credit processes, becoming a “high-quality digital employee” that drives efficiency across all business operations. In the insurance sector, leveraging AI vision, intelligent voice, and natural language processing capabilities, combined with years of productization practice in insurance technology, we have successfully integrated AI algorithms with claims business logic, building an intelligent claims system covering the entire process from investigation, assessment, approval, payment, to risk control, transitioning auto insurance claims from manual-driven to intelligent collaboration, significantly enhancing claims efficiency and customer experience.
At the same time, we are combining the group’s AI foundational capabilities with our own SaaS product system, promoting the continuous evolution of AI in underlying processes such as model training, knowledge Q&A, and risk control decision-making, making AI no longer an isolated tool but a sustainably evolving productive unit.
Financial Technology Accelerates “Going Overseas”, From Outputting Technology to Outputting Standards
21st Century Business Herald: From the domestic market perspective, financial technology companies face fierce competition from numerous IT vendors and internet companies, and the decline in profitability of clients such as banks has also led to reduced IT budgets. How does OneConnect plan its layout in the domestic market currently and in the future?
Chen Dangyang:In the current market environment, we are focusing more on “refining” and “solidifying”. In the domestic market, we will continue to deepen our focus on the financial main business, adhering to a dual-driven approach of “business + technology”, concentrating on the deep application of AI agents and SaaS subscription models, helping banks, insurance, and other financial institutions achieve cost reduction, efficiency enhancement, and quality upgrades with practical and measurable product value.
In terms of ecological business, OneConnect is providing sustainable intelligent empowerment for domestic financial institutions through data ecology and vehicle ecology construction.
In the data ecology aspect, we integrate internal and external data resources, processing them to form data advantages covering at least 10 thematic areas, combined with algorithm models to build five types of key customer profiles, forming comprehensive data services covering due diligence, pricing, customer acquisition, and risk control across multiple scenarios, helping financial institutions achieve more precise risk control and marketing, while establishing a secure data management defense line.
In terms of vehicle ecology, relying on a dual-driven approach of “technology + business”, we have built a repair service network covering all 32 provinces in China, aggregating over 20,000 repair shops, providing platform services such as insurance services, repair support, digital operations, and customer acquisition for small and micro enterprises in the automotive aftermarket, while accumulating high-quality auto parts transaction data to support financial services and industrial operations, enhancing the overall ecological intelligence level.
21st Century Business Herald: Is the overseas market becoming a major growth point for OneConnect’s business? What are the plans for expanding overseas business?
Chen Dangyang:In the overseas market, we will continue to increase our layout efforts. Hong Kong is the starting point for internationalization and an important window for the output of technical standards; Southeast Asia has become a key strategic market for our expansion.
For instance, in Vietnam, the demand for financial digitalization is rapidly growing, and we have established a partnership network with several local financial institutions to promote the implementation of core systems, vehicle ecology, and intelligent risk control projects. Besides Vietnam, we have also formed a relatively complete cooperation and service network in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia; in emerging markets like South Africa, we have gradually expanded our influence through a partnership model.
In the future, the overseas market will occupy an increasingly important proportion in the overall business structure, but we place more emphasis on sustainability, compliance, and long-term value.
21st Century Business Herald: 2025 is expected to be a year of explosive growth for the “standard going overseas” in financial technology. As the core technology output platform of Ping An Group, OneConnect has won multiple financial technology projects in the Hong Kong market and overseas markets such as Southeast Asia and South Africa. What fields do these projects mainly involve? What are the main demands of overseas clients?
Chen Dangyang:The overseas market is becoming a “touchstone” for the value of Chinese financial technology. Currently, our overseas projects mainly focus on digital banking and insurance system construction, anti-fraud and eKYC compliance management, vehicle ecology, etc., covering 20 countries and regions, serving 214 clients.
From the perspective of client demand, compliance, security, and sustainability are common requirements. Overseas financial institutions generally hope to quickly deploy systems using mature SaaS models, balancing regulatory requirements with business efficiency. OneConnect, relying on Ping An Group’s over thirty years of experience in finance and technology practice, provides clients with sustainable, modular, and low-cost delivery solutions to achieve full-link intelligence from account opening, risk control to operations.
For example, in the Hong Kong market, OneConnect continues to deepen cooperation with strategic clients, with AI vision products covering multiple commercial banks in Hong Kong, achieving a retail banking client coverage rate of over 70%, with annual calls exceeding 10 million times, covering more than 26 scenarios.
In the Southeast Asian market, OneConnect has made breakthroughs in Vietnam, signing a core system construction project with Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank), which can support 10,000 transactions per second and handle up to 1 billion transactions daily.
Transforming AI from a “Tool” to a “Business Partner”
21st Century Business Herald: This year, the “Opinions on Deepening the Implementation of the ‘Artificial Intelligence+’ Action” was released. What cases are there of institutions transforming financial technology capabilities into real economic effectiveness in serving enterprises and assisting industrial upgrades?
Chen Dangyang:The release of the “Opinions” marks the formal elevation of artificial intelligence to a national strategy. The document proposes to “cultivate internationally competitive financial technology enterprises”, providing important support for Shenzhen to build a global financial technology center.
In recent years, we have conducted extensive practical explorations in promoting the implementation of “artificial intelligence + finance”. A typical case is the “All-Purpose Agent” platform in the insurance sector. This platform combines Ping An Life’s over 30 years of operational experience with AI capabilities, achieving intelligent collaboration in areas such as recruitment, business development, performance, and customer management. More importantly, it transforms AI from a “tool” into a business partner, promoting the integration of standardized and localized services.
At the same time, we are also applying AI capabilities to support inclusive finance and the development of domestic innovation. In the field of inclusive finance, our self-developed digital SME credit system integrates multi-dimensional data such as corporate tax payments and transaction flows to build a “data credit” model, providing banks with full-process intelligent approval support before, during, and after loans. In the direction of domestic innovation, our intelligent voice products have passed over 100 domestic compatibility certifications and have been included in the national domestic innovation directory, widely used in intelligent customer service, voice outbound calling, and marketing scenarios in financial institutions.
Overall, OneConnect adheres to a core methodology of “business + technology” dual-driven approach, embedding AI capabilities into business processes to form practical, measurable, and replicable industry value.
21st Century Business Herald: The Hong Kong Monetary Authority recently announced the list of participants for the second phase of the Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenA.I.) sandbox, with OneConnect included. The second phase of the sandbox plan focuses on actively strengthening AI governance. Has the “Intelligent Visual Anti-Fraud Strategy Platform” launched by OneConnect entered the practical application stage? Can you provide examples of the implementation of this system?
Chen Dangyang:We are very honored to be selected for the second phase of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s GenA.I. sandbox plan. The “Intelligent Visual Anti-Fraud Strategy Platform” jointly developed by OneConnect and Hong Kong Digital Bank PAObank focuses on AI governance and anti-fraud defense, building a “fighting AI with AI” system centered on deep recognition.
The “Intelligent Visual Anti-Fraud Strategy Platform” detects from multiple dimensions such as devices, documents, and portraits, integrating 25 digital modules including deepfake detection, facial recognition, multi-national license recognition, and device risk assessment, capable of deeply analyzing AI-generated images, accurately identifying complex attacks such as face-swapping and forged videos, with a comprehensive detection defense rate exceeding 99%.
Currently, this platform has been piloted in key areas such as eKYC identity verification, remote account opening, and online lending, achieving good results in risk control, approval efficiency, and compliance review.
Further Promoting the Systematic Implementation of AI Agent Technology
21st Century Business Herald: What are the key goals for OneConnect in technology research and development, business expansion, and global layout in the next 3-5 years? At this critical juncture of the 14th Five-Year Plan, how will you continue to practice the core mission of “technology creates financial value”?
Chen Dangyang:First, in terms of technology research and development, our goal is to become a leading enterprise in the financial technology and artificial intelligence industry. OneConnect will continue to implement Ping An Group’s “AI in All” strategy, continuously advancing the “Five Intelligences” strategy by focusing on core technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and intelligent risk control, building a sustainable evolving intelligent technology foundation, continuously improving the six major product matrices of “insurance core, banking core, vehicle ecology, data ecology, intelligent vision, and intelligent voice”, forming differentiated competitive advantages, and promoting the deep integration of AI technology with financial business.
In the next 3-5 years, we will further promote the systematic implementation of AI Agent technology, forming a closed-loop architecture of “data – model – intelligent agent – application”, allowing AI to truly become a productive tool for financial institutions.
Second, in terms of business expansion, the company will build a new pattern of coordinated development of financial technology domestically and internationally: domestically, we will continue to deepen core tracks such as banking, insurance, and vehicle ecology, relying on Ping An’s years of accumulated business models and risk control systems, providing end-to-end, replicable digital transformation solutions for banks, insurance, and other institutions through an “SaaS + service” output model, using AI and big data intelligence to promote the digital upgrade of the financial industry; at the same time, we will actively practice the “five major articles of finance”, using technological means to serve the real economy and social livelihood, such as in the field of inclusive finance, solving the financing difficulties of small and micro enterprises through data-driven risk control models;
In overseas markets, we will focus on laying out in Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and South Africa, creating digital financial samples that are replicable in technology and standards, such as in the field of cross-border finance, using blockchain and trusted identity authentication technologies to assist in financial openness and connectivity of elements.
Third, in terms of global layout, OneConnect will leverage overseas output as a link to fully empower the group’s overseas strategy, building stronger international competitiveness and brand influence for Ping An Group through standardized technology and service output. The company will adopt a “platform + ecology” overseas model, co-building digital infrastructure with local financial institutions, supporting the stable development of financial systems in emerging markets, and promoting the internationalization of Chinese financial technology standards.
Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Research Institute
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