Data storage and moneylending get connected

The rapid emergence of the fintech sector is giving entrepreneurs extensive scope to innovate and explore. Against a backdrop of evolving technologies and shifting consumer expectations, the way is open for them to create businesses which offer new operating paradigms or resolve challenges thrown up by the digital revolution.

In some cases, the emphasis is on the financial side, perhaps finding new ways to bring borrowers and lenders together. In others, it is on making the tech aspects more user-friendly or secure. Either way, though, there is clearly a whole new area of opportunity which will continue to attract some of Hong Kong’s brightest minds.

Jack Poon, CEO of AtCipher.com

“What concerned us was that some of the most prominent, successful companies had been lulling users into putting their personal information into the ‘cloud’ and then finding ways to monetise that data,” says one such entrepreneur, Jack Poon, CEO of AtCipher.com. “We felt that was wrong and that there ought to be a better way for users to enjoy cloud services without compromising their private and personal information.”

Set up less than two years ago, the company aimed to solve this problem, looking at things from the customer, not the corporate, viewpoint. With this went the realisation that data breaches of one kind or another were increasing every year, and the various threats were becoming more targeted and ever more sophisticated.

“While most cyber security companies offer solutions which provide ‘perimeter defence’, we felt strongly that protection should be extended to the data itself,” Poon says.