Times have changed.
When many ordinary Chinese hear about shein for the first time, they have no idea what it does, or even that it was born in Nanjing, China.
But in the United States, it has become a favorite shopping App for young people. It beat retail giants such as Walmart Inc and Amazon.Com Inc, and it took only four years.
The same is true of voice transmission. In the African market, it is the king of the mobile phone world, and even Apple Inc and Samsung can only look up to the existence.
However, this enterprise in Shenzhen, Guangdong, did not choose to roll with other manufacturers at home from the very beginning, but chose to occupy the African market with functional phones and make a fortune there.
Or "dimension reduction", or "dimension promotion", grasp the key "time difference", and you can become a truly global company with as much success as your domestic business.
So, at a time when most Chinese are unconscious, e-commerce, communications, financial services.A wave of entrepreneurs have resolutely gone out to sea, entering the core areas that have been monopolized by Europe and the United States for more than a century, exporting the most advanced business models in reverse.
Some of the leaders have gone beyond the path of "copy and paste" and reached the stage of "technology output".
One of the most typical signs is whether you can have a place in the strongest fortress in Europe and the United States.
There is no doubt that finance is such a fortress-but it is not an easy way to go wild.
However, Chinese brokerages, represented by Fortune, have cut a gap in this strongest barrier, looking for a breakpoint to occupy the track for ordinary individual investors. To gain a foothold and strengthen itself by means of parallel and complementary with the huge traditional investment banks.
The reason is not complicated.
Son once mentioned a "time machine" theory. He believes that it is necessary to make full use of the imbalance in development between different countries and industries.
Once upon a time, the mature cross-border experience of foreign investment banks, the project process for the listing of well-known large enterprises and a highly international operating network were the models for domestic securities firms to learn. But today, digitization plus financial services is the first to become the norm in China.
Rich way, borrowed the potential of unbalanced development, more importantly, it caught the time difference of fate.
Break through the walls of the "old world"
In the digital age, with the development of financial technology, it may give "New Money" a gap, and they will often be able to overtake around the corner.
Two years ago, if you were a customer of both Chinese and overseas banks, you might suddenly feel like you were shuttling between the old and the new.
In dealing with banking business in mainland China, there is almost nothing that can not be solved by a mobile phone and an App, and it is basically possible to stay at home. As for the business of foreign banks, personal computer plus telephone plus Email is standard, and many important business needs to be handled by myself at the counter by appointment.
The catch-up of China's financial institutions in science and technology investment is a significant indicator.
According to a survey conducted by BCG, taking the securities industry as an example, the average proportion of technology investment by Chinese brokerages in total revenue reached 6-7% in 2020, and some leading institutions even exceeded 11%. This figure exceeds that of many foreign counterparts.
The Chinese may not have imagined that the first step for many foreign banks to fully enter the mobile Internet era is often taken by their Chinese outlets.
When you are at a bank in Belgium, you can only see the bank staff for about four hours of each working day, and when you are at a bank in Singapore, you have to get used to delivering forms and stamps between different windows.
Futu arrived with a brokerage platform that integrates online account opening, investment trading, financial information, investment community and investor education, and became the first batch of Chinese securities firms to enter the "river of time with different flow rates".
In just a few years of development, by the end of the first quarter of 2022, the number of Futu global users has reached 18.1 million, covering more than 200 countries and regions, and the number of asset customers has reached 1.326 million. Of the net increased asset customers in Q1, more than 80% come from Hong Kong, China, Singapore and other overseas markets, with a customer retention rate of 98.2%.
After years of accumulation in Hong Kong, China, Fu Tu has become familiar with the rules of the game in the financial world, while his keen grasp of the time difference in the development of financial technology has made it possible for him to find a definite way up.
The speed of the rich way to go to sea has suddenly speeded up. In fact, in less than two years, it has successively landed in Singapore and won the license plate of Australia. So far, Fortune holds a total of 50 licenses and qualifications (including approval in principle) in Hong Kong, China, the United States, Singapore, Australia and Pan-Europe.
Then, Fortune also made new breakthroughs in wealth management, with the scale of asset management and the number of users reaching new highs one after another.
By the end of the first quarter of this year, Fortune Elephant Wealth has established cooperative relations with 64 well-known financial institutions around the world, including five new Q1, including Wellington Investment, Fulton Capital Management, Lian Capital Management, Nikko Asset Management, Dahua Asset Management and so on.
At a time when Singapore and Hong Kong have seen their status as Asian financial centers rise and fall as a result of the epidemic, people suddenly find that the rich path of "rising stars" is standing out in the blue ocean market of wealth management of more than 50 trillion yuan in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Since the first seed was planted in Hong Kong, China a decade ago, Fortune's overseas tentacles have also been quietly extended to brokerage, wealth management and corporate services.
In retrospect, no company could have expanded on such a scale on the financial track had it not been for the "generation gap in technological development".
Find and do the "most important thing"
"the most important thing is only one thing. "
This is the core idea of the best-selling book The One Thing, which once topped the list of Amazon.Com Inc. Author Gary Keller believes that the secret of success is to focus, inspire people to find the most critical first "domino", use small cards to overthrow big cards to achieve geometric growth, and finally achieve grand goals through a "most important thing".
Lead China's financial science and technology to go out to sea, chisel the hard shell of the "Old Money" world, and then gain a foothold and grow. After a long journey back to the essence, the "most important thing" of the rich road is actuallyBang on mobile financial technology, ensure the ultimate user experience, and infinitely magnify the advanced nature.
Unlike most financial technology service companies, Futu has been fully committed to developing a complete set of front-to back-end closed-loop systems from the very beginning, including account opening, trading, settlement, market, information and social networking.
Futu once clearly wrote in the prospectus: "the original intention of our business is that no one should be excluded from the investment door because of high transaction costs or lack of market experience."As an advanced technology company, we change the investment experience by providing a fully digital brokerage platform, allowing us to provide a redefined user experience based on a flexible, stable and scalable security platform.」
The two key words in this sentence--Financial technology and service experience complement each other, like the two sides of a coin.
Li Hua, founder of Fortune, once made a good exposition on these two. "there is a certain contradiction between the Internet and financial technology-the core of the Internet is agile iteration and user experience, while the core of financial technology is consistency, security and stability," he said. However, Fortune has a high level in both aspects, which constitutes Fortune's track lead on a global scale. "
Ten years ago, when Li Hua, employee No. 18 of Tencent, officially founded Fortune in Hong Kong, China, the standard user experience of the "Old money" world was like this--
On the one hand, investors will be at the seaside, on the tram, in the cafe, in the vegetable market. Take out a huge mobile phone, dial the number of the stockbroker, report the trading code, and complete the stock transaction. On the other hand, although there are more than 700 brokerages in Hong Kong, established foreign brokerages have already recruited a large number of institutional customers by virtue of their complete financial licenses and intensive business outlets, and have no incentive to bow down and attract retail investors.
So, when ordinary people in the "Old Money" world first experience opening accounts with one click, supporting cross-market and multi-variety transactions, real-time instructions, and instant transfer. These functions, which feel so common today, seem to open the door to a new world in an instant. You can hardly imagine how excited they are.
Futu has been working in Hong Kong, China for a decade, using financial technology to help investors improve their trading experience.
At the end of 2011, Fu Tu had independently developed and completed the Hong Kong stock trading system, which was certified by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, before the exhibition industry in Hong Kong. The transaction time of the order, including the network delay, took only 0.0037 seconds, making it the most responsive Hong Kong stock trading system in the market at that time.
For high-frequency trading players, one second faster than others, it is possible to earn millions more. Time is really money, which is why institutions often take the initiative to participate in the exchange to lay submarine cables.
Five years later, the road to prosperity is even faster.
From the end of 2016 to the beginning of 2017, Futu launched free Hong Kong stock LV2 quotes and US stock LV1 quotes one after another, so that investors can get rich real-time quotes and transaction information, and even make real-time decisions like traders.
Rich way is to uphold this way of doing things, do a good job of the user experience, and then wait quietly.
In July 2018, when the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission issued new rules to allow online account opening and trading, it took only half a month to launch a full online account opening system, the first in Hong Kong, China.
Futu also obtained an automated trading license (No. 7) issued by the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission in August 2019 and opened the dark market trading of new shares, that is, pre-listing trading, so that investors who have not won the new shares can also participate in the trading in advance the day before the stock listing, enhancing the experience of this user group.
All of a sudden, the new hit of Hong Kong stocks has become a craze.
In early 2021, the dark market of Hong Kong stocks researched by Futu was allowed to access third-party securities firms and upgraded to a platform to empower them. In fact, Futu and another brokerage now account for 80% of the total turnover in the dark market.
The inherent support for the upgrading of user experience is the innovation of the underlying technology.
When it comes to the technical background of Futuo, the "battle" in 2015 has to be mentioned.
In April 2015, due to policy stimulus, Hong Kong stocks ushered in a big bull market, record account opening and trading volume. As a result, the servers of a number of banks and securities firms were down and could not be traded normally. As the only cutting-edge brokerage in Hong Kong, China, to support remote account opening, Futu has apparently suffered even greater pressure from a surge in traffic, with three-day trading volume climbing from 6 billion to 15 billion, while visits to its website increased tenfold over the same period.
However, the Futu trading system expands rapidly and flexibly, withstands the trading peak, achieves the average latency 20ms, and maintains a high-quality trading experience.
The rich way of science and technology empowering finance has also continuously won three rounds of investment from Tencent, Jingwei and Sequoia, and launched the independently developed settlement system FTBOS, which further strengthens the support of science and technology to its financial business.
Futu's emphasis on technology research and development and investment is relatively rare in the financial industry.
Today, seven out of every 10 rich passers-by are R & D personnel. In 2021, Fortune invested HK $15 million to increase the number of trading channels from 200 to 500. it can handle 1000 Hong Kong stock trading orders per second, far exceeding the industry average.
Knockout technology can help Futuo quickly adapt to the changes of the times, different markets, and different financial products.
Over the past ten years, Futu has stepped on every wave of change, objectively promoting the development of the financial industry in Hong Kong, China.
First, technological innovation has become an important driving force.Technology has greatly reduced communication costs, and Futu maintained the smooth operation of transactions, systems and services with the help of mature technology during the epidemic.
Second, more professional individual investors are on the rise.In the GameStop incident in early 2021, the scene of the war between American retail investors and Wall Street is fresh in my mind. Wu Biwei, a senior partner of Fortune and president of financial and corporate services, has said that overseas stock markets are gradually becoming retail. Today, one out of every three adults in Hong Kong, China, is a Fortune user.
Third, the rapid popularity of online investment has broken the previous offline-based trading pattern.In the first quarter of 2022, an average of 363000 Hong Kong users in China were active in Futu's "Niuniu" community every trading day.
Not only that, Fu Tu has also "copied" its success in Hong Kong, China to the world.
In 2021, Fu Tu entered Singapore. In just one year, it won the first of several industries in the Singapore market, becoming the first local technology securities firm to obtain full membership of the Singapore Stock Exchange.
However, sadly, many of the other local brokerages in Hong Kong, China, remained in the old era until the outbreak, which led to the closure of more than 80 brokerages. In the first five months of 2022 alone, 31 Hong Kong brokerages closed or suspended business. From 2016 to mid-2018, only 14 brokerages closed down.
Create a moat of a "new world"
The logic of Chinese companies going out to sea is changing dramatically.
In the past, companies thought that as long as they went overseas, they were "global enterprises" and tended to be successful. But for today's Chinese enterprises, it is more important to define new business models and focus on innovation.
The gene of the mobile Internet is the connection. Chinese new economy entrepreneurs who go out to sea are thinking about how to expand their connections all the time. Socializing is certainly one of the most effective.
No financial institution in the "Old Money" world would regard ordinary retail investors as objects that require a lot of effort to maintain. But in turn, for companies with Internet genes, maintaining users is a compulsory course.
Fu Tu's social genes play an indelible role in enhancing user stickiness.
For example, based on the trading days of the first quarter of 2022, the average daily stay of its Hong Kong users in Futu Niuniu APP was 33.4 minutes, while that of Wechat was just over 70 minutes.
In addition, nearly 100000 UGC messages were produced in the "Niuyuan" community, maintaining a high level of activity. Let the "bullpen" become the largest online investment community in Hong Kong, China.
Moreover, under the organization of Fu Tu, the "cattle friends" of "Niuniu" signed up independently to recruit groups, and together with Fu Tu, they went into the research of many well-known listed companies, such as NIO Inc. Automobile, Zhongan Insurance, LexinFintech Holdings Ltd., and so on, to gain a deeper understanding of the value of the company.
Individual investors are willing to share their investment experience and experience with each other. Futu has grasped this and made full use of social genes, built social infrastructure, raised V, enhanced user stickiness, and further strengthened its own moat.
Overseas, Futu has taken socialization to new heights.
Futu users are in more than 200 countries and regions around the world, and there are a lot of overseas users. In such a large number of users activate social interaction, the leverage effect is very good.
As a result, Futu launched the international version of Futu Niuniu APP-moomoo, bringing the full-line investment experience directly to the United States, Europe, Singapore, Australia and other English-speaking countries.
For example, less than three months after moomoo was launched in Singapore, the number of registered users has exceeded 220000, and the number of asset customers has also quickly exceeded the 100000 mark. As early as the third quarter of 2021, moomoo was firmly in the top three in Singapore's financial and economic APP download rankings.
Moomoo connects different investors, such as investors, listed companies, professional institutions, media, analysts and opinions, to build a user-centered closed loop of investment ecology, changing the previous monotonous and boring investment experience.
"what stocks have you bought recently? "
"is it up or down today? "
"what's the next wealth password? ".
First,In this online community, single chat and chat room functions meet the demand of timely communication between users; large-capacity group and group chat functions meet the demand of interactive communication between users and industry Daniel; temporary session function meets the demand of feedback and communication between users and official platform; live broadcast function meets the demand of close communication between users and enterprises.
The major change brought about by this is that the trend of "investment autonomy" is becoming more and more obvious.
Second,More than 900 well-known enterprises have entered the Futu Enterprise account, and many well-known enterprises, such as Baidu, Inc., JD.com, Kuaishou Technology, NIO Inc., XPeng Inc. and other well-known enterprises, have held live results for four consecutive quarters, coupled with the relevant information of "one picture to understand" released by the community. let retail investors feel the atmosphere of the earnings season and help individual investors understand listed companies better.
In addition,Moomoo has also launched a series of investor education courses to accompany investors to grow and advance.
For example, moomoo has held an online investment forum with the US financial news organization Benzinga to deepen the exchange of investment experience, and jointly organized a youth simulation trading competition in two educational institutions to enhance the financial literacy of young people.
Moomoo and Futu Niuniu have also launched nearly 2500 teaching videos and graphics, covering a number of courses and topics, further promoting investor education in the local market.
In 2021, moomoo platform was named as the "most active trading application" by Benzinga and the best active trading App of 2021 by Investing Simple.
From connecting individual investors to building community ecology, and then to follow-up investor education, Futu focuses on social networking overseas, and step by step, fully applying the agglomeration effect of the Internet to the field of investment. The embryonic form of "investing in meta-universe" has emerged.
Connecting with the world, polishing products and putting users first, this is the Internet model that Chinese enterprises are exporting in reverse to the developed regions of Europe and the United States.
Futu is quietly changing something that is taken for granted by Old Money.
"the next decade"
The decade in which Fortune has been deeply cultivated in Hong Kong, China, is also a decade in which drastic changes have taken place in the world financial pattern.
Looking to the future, Futu's "next decade" will certainly be the stage of deepening the roots of financial technology and financial services.
In the process of globalization, many regions and fields are on the eve of an exponential outbreak. For example, on the financing side, there are still a small number of institutions that are really familiar with China's new economy going to sea, and perhaps world-class platforms and enterprises will be born again.
Xu Lizeng, senior vice president of Fortune, said: "We hope that Futu, as an export-oriented enterprise in financial services, will continue to expand the international market and contribute to the export of China's financial services industry by virtue of its ability to compete with large international banks in products and services.」
The United States is the world's largest exporter of services, accounting for 14.1% of the world's total share. Although the proportion of China's service industry exports ranks fifth in the world, the proportion is only 4.6%, which is not strong by comparison.
Among the exports of US trade in services, financial services accounted for the highest proportion, reaching 33.7%. Especially since the epidemic, the financial services industry has surpassed the tourism industry to become the largest service industry in the United States in terms of exports.
China's financial services companies are catching up.
The road to prosperity has taken the first step, cutting a gap in the financial barriers of Europe and the United States.
The drastic changes in the old and new times have given birth to diversified development opportunities, and Futu has found its unique value in the global value chain.