Financial Attitude | How can FinTech better serve innovation needs across the entire lifecycle? Expert interpretation

Ask AI · How can science and technology finance solve the high-risk financing difficulties faced by lightweight asset enterprises?

CNR Beijing, April 3 (Reporter Ren Fangyan) — According to the Voice of China Radio and Television’s “Trading Live” report, the People’s Bank of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission recently jointly held a conference to promote science and technology financial work. The meeting emphasized enhancing the professional capabilities of science and technology financial services, enriching financial products suited to the characteristics of high-tech fields. It also highlighted the effective use of policies such as science and technology innovation and technical transformation refinancing, pilot programs for equity investment in financial asset investment companies, merger and acquisition loans, and the “Science and Technology Board” in the bond market, to direct financial resources more precisely toward the field of technological innovation.

The Voice of Economy’s “Financial Attitude” interviewed Yang Tao, Deputy Director of the National Financial and Development Laboratory, on this topic.

Yang Tao believes that coordinated efforts using diversified policy tools can provide stronger support for technological innovation. Science and technology innovation and technical transformation refinancing allow low-cost funds to directly reach tech-based small and medium-sized enterprises and related projects. Equity investments by financial asset investment companies (AICs) can achieve ecological synergy and form a funding network tailored to major science and innovation hubs. M&A loans help promote industrial chain integration, with a focus on supporting the development of strategic emerging industries such as semiconductors, new energy, and biomedicine.

Yang Tao mentioned that science and technology innovation enterprises are generally “light assets, high risk, and highly innovative,” requiring more medium- and long-term funds to accompany them continuously. To this end, it is necessary to establish risk-sharing mechanisms, effectively identify risks, and reduce concerns among financial institutions about “early and small investments.” Additionally, products should be designed according to the full lifecycle characteristics of technological innovation.

In recent years, some AIC businesses have shifted their focus from debt-to-equity swaps to equity investments. Yang Tao stated that this indicates AICs are gradually transforming from risk mitigation to providing science and technology financial services, becoming patient capital carriers that connect indirect and direct financing. Yang Tao suggested that to better leverage the role of AICs in the future, further improvements are needed in incentive and restraint mechanisms, and more medium- and long-term funding sources should be supported. Moreover, to achieve a virtuous cycle of “technology-industry-finance,” it is necessary to further strengthen the concept of full lifecycle science and technology financial services, leveraging digital and new technological capabilities to realize precise matching of financial supply and demand. At the same time, rules, standards, and ecological construction should be improved to ensure smooth connections among different financial institutions and to form an incentive-compatible ecological mechanism.