Panellists

Vice President, Tencent & Head of Tencent Financial Technology Department

 

Lai oversees the Tencent Financial Technology Department（FiT） that provides convenient and safe mobile payments as well as financial and wealth management services to over 500 million combined users of WeChat Pay and QQ Wallet. At the same time, the team enables business clients to increase transaction volume and acquire more users. As of May 2016, the average number of daily transactions on WeChat Pay and QQ Wallet combined exceeded 500 million. In 2017, the number of Tencent Li Cai Tong Fund users exceeded 100 million, with the fund’s inventory reaching over 100 billion Yuan. As of today, Tencent FiT’s mobile payment and financial application products have connected with over 200 financial institutions, and are integrated with more than 1.5 million retailer users.

Under Lai’s leadership, the team has continued to innovate, its most noteworthy achievement being the WeChat Red Packet and QQ Red Packet, gained large popularity in China. At its peak, during 2017 Chinese New Year Spring Festival, users sent 208,000 WeChat and QQ combined red packets per second, once again setting a new record. In parallel, Lai proactively propelled Tencent’s innovation in blockchain technology and credit data, contributing significantly to Tencent’s leadership position in FINTECH.

Lai joined Tencent in 2009 as manager of the QQ Membership Product Department. He was promoted first to General Manager of Tenpay in 2012, and then to head of the Tencent Financial Technology Department in 2015. Lai also holds board member positions at Zhong An Online Property Insurance, HeTai Life Insurance and CITIC Capital Holdings.

Lai was named one of the “leading figures of enterprises under the 530 China national plan” by Wuxi of Jiangsu Province in 2009.

Prior to joining Tencent, Lai assumed investment manager positions with Apax Partners PE in the UK and Lehman Brother’s Investment Bank in the US, and served as assistant vice president at Credit Suisse First Boston Investment Bank.

LAI holds both an MS bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in economics from MIT, as well as an MBA degree from Harvard Business School.