Designing Disruption
Rita Liu integrates technology and regulation in fintech development
With extensive international experience, Rita Liu has built a career at the intersection of technology, regulation, and financial infrastructure. She is now making her mark as Group Chief Executive Officer of RD Technologies, a Hong Kong-based fintech group providing digital services for corporate clients through a number of licensed companies.
RD Technologies is building next-generation infrastructure that connects traditional financial operations with Web3 technology, while ensuring compliance with regulatory guidelines and industry best practices. The aim is to enable secure cross-border payments, and digital-asset management and settlement services. The ambition is deliberately structural, supporting the development of Hong Kong’s virtual asset ecosystem, including the adoption of stablecoins and newer forms of payment.
Rita’s approach reflects experience gained at scale. She previously held senior roles at Ant Group, where her team established the firm’s European operations from scratch, and later served as Chief Executive Officer of Alipay (UK). Along the way, she worked across enterprise and consumer payments, digital wallet and cryptocurrencies, and led initiatives spanning marketing, mergers and acquisitions, and product development.
Changing the game
In accomplishing all of this, Rita sees two recurring challenges. One is keeping pace with rapid technological change and identifying where advances can be put to commercial use. The other is understanding what those shifts imply - for merchants, consumers, banks, investors, and regulators alike - all of whom must be convinced not only of innovation’s potential, but also of its security and reliability.
“That is why we champion a dual approach to the business, whether dealing with cross-border payment platforms, crypto or other digital assets,” Rita says. With a career that began in Beijing, and later took her to Shanghai, North America and London before landing in Hong Kong, she has a distinctly global perspective. “We want to be innovative, but compliant with the rules, knowing that about 45 or 50 different jurisdictions now have fintech laws in place or are in the process of putting together regulatory frameworks.”
In a sector where novelty can be mistaken for progress, Rita’s interest lies firmly in how innovation reshapes systems. The pace of change is part of the appeal but so too is the opportunity to influence how digital transformation is understood, governed, and adopted.
“I am among the lucky ones who have been able to witness the fintech revolution close up,” she says. “I joined Ant Group in 2010, when e-commerce, mobile payments and QR codes were just about to take off. I was in the right place at the right time to be part of that movement, and it has since taken me around the world.”
Shaping tomorrow
Attention is now turned to stablecoin, a form of digital currency supported by secure blockchain technology, and its wider adoption for international trade transactions. When issued, stablecoin tokens are linked to a fiat currency – so far mostly the US dollar, but the offshore renminbi and Hong Kong Dollar are equally viable – and they are fully asset-backed by a bank or licensed financial institution.
Held in digital wallets, the tokens maintain their value and can be used to settle transactions quickly between trading partners, bypassing traditional interbank systems and processes, and in effect cutting out the middleman.
“Our ambition is to bring stablecoin to the mainstream with a digital wallet, custody and payment solutions for different types of users,” Rita says. “In Hong Kong, things have been tested in a ‘sandbox’ and legislation is already in effect, so we can create the necessary framework and make it easy for people to get started.”
Rita adds that if Hong Kong is to realise its stated goal of becoming a global hub for fintech products and digital payment systems, it is essential to take a holistic approach and be ready to think about ‘money’ in new ways.
“Today, every player in the industry is trying to provide seamless services and greater value for users,” she says. “At RD Technologies, we are also focused on creating trust, having good risk-control mechanisms, and showing a wider audience there are all sorts of ‘plug-and-play’ solutions.”
Lessons that last
From the outset of her career, Rita has been guided by an instinct to question established approaches. In her view, speed of execution matters once a direction is set, and many potential problems can be averted by simply putting yourself in the customer’s shoes and considering likely pain points.
“Understanding the original vision of the company and industry definitely helped whenever I was in danger of going down a rabbit hole,” she says. “Keeping that in mind gave me courage and revived my passion to deal with new challenges.”
In her various roles, she focused first on mastering what the job required but also made a point of seeing the overall picture and where longer-term projects, such as the initial discussions about stablecoin, were intended to lead.
At each stage, she accepted that success came from a combination of hard work and good luck, and that there were certain advantages in being bold and speaking up.
“I learned the importance of being ambitious and sticking to what you believe in,” she says. “In any career, there are sure to be a lot of distractions and naysayers along the way. But if you are a disrupter and committed to what you do, you will find a way to make ideas work and get the team through difficulties.”