A promotional image for Invest Seoul / Courtesy of Invest Seoul

By Anna J. Park

Invest Seoul, the city government's investment arm, will be hosting a series of events in Hong Kong later this week to promote the city as Asia's financial hub and to facilitate networking for local fintech firms.

First off, the investment center will hold a two-day promotion of Seoul from Jan. 11 to 12 on the sidelines of the 16th Asian Financial Forum (AFF) at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC). The AFF is an annual networking platform hosted jointly by the Hong Kong government and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), attracting tens of thousands of visitors annually from some 80 countries and regions.

Since this year's AFF is the first offline event in three years due to COVID-19, many global financial firms, including HSBC, UBS and Bank of China, along with over 130 fintench startups and companies from all around the world, are expected to show up to build up their connections.

Invest Seoul will operate a booth at the HKCEC, arranging one-on-one meetings with global financial companies to inform them of Seoul's business environment as well as the city's incentive programs bestowed for any global financial firms that aim to open up branches in Korea's capital city. Cooperating with the Federation of Hong Kong Industries (FHKI), the center also plans to conduct various surveys to figure out global financial companies' business trends and their needs when choosing cities for opening up branches.

On Jan. 13, Invest Seoul will host its Seoul Fintech Networking event at Hong Kong's Regal Hotel to attract investment for Korea-headquartered fintech-based asset management companies and blockchain firms, inviting global investors, Hong Kong's fintech association and financial firms.

"Invest Seoul will be aggressively promoting Seoul to global firms considering further advances into Asia," said Gu Bon-hi, director of Invest Seoul. "We aim to convince investors of Seoul's attractiveness as a new financial hub, while establishing a pro-Seoul investment network."