From July 10 to 12, 2025, the “The Tailor-Made Finance & Innovation Visit in Chengdu” was successfully held in Chengdu. Organized by the China Innovation Finance Institute | Chengdu, the roadshow served as a flagship initiative under the Chengdu Finance Week empowerment platform. It received strong participation and support from municipal and district-level government bodies as well as over one hundred outstanding enterprises.
Focusing on cross-border investment and financing opportunities in the Central Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, the event adopted a two-way roadshow model featuring field research and visits, project presentations, doors-closed roundtable discussions, and MoU signings. It effectively connected Chengdu’s leading enterprises with international investors and welcomed high-level representatives from government agencies, regulatory authorities, international organizations, and service institutions from Kazakhstan, Germany, the United Kingdom, and other countries. Hundreds of local industry leaders and business association representatives also attended.
During the European session, the spotlight was on Germany and the United Kingdom. Multiple experts were invited to provide in-depth analysis of the investment outlook between China and Europe. Yucheng Zhao, Director of Strategic Partnerships for China, at the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), and Feng Chen, Director of Marketing for Data & Analytics, China Southwest region, at LSEG, elaborated on the significance of financial infrastructure and financial data, while presenting the advantages and services that LSEG offers to support Chengdu enterprises in overseas investment, financing, and decision-making.
Below is the keynote speech delivered by Yucheng Zhao, Director of Strategic Partnerships for China, at LSEG.
Distinguished leaders, esteemed guests, and colleagues from the financial sector, good afternoon!
It is a great honor to participate in this year’s Chengdu Finance Week. I have deeply felt the growing financial appeal and innovative vitality of Chengdu as a city. On behalf of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the organizer, the China Innovation Finance Institute | Chengdu, and offer my warm greetings to all distinguished guests here today.
Today, I would like to take this opportunity to share some brief perspectives on three topics: the importance of global financial infrastructure, the value of financial data, and the London Stock Exchange Group’s development in China.
Let me start with a brief introduction to LSEG. The London Stock Exchange has a history of nearly 260 years. As an institution that has long served the global financial and capital markets, we are committed to building an open, fair, and transparent market system, providing solid support for corporate financing, investment and trading, as well as regulatory compliance. In recent years, LSEG has been accelerating diversification and globalization. We have gradually evolved from a traditional stock exchange into a global financial market’s infrastructure and data technology company. Our business covers three key directions. The first is capital markets services, covering the issuance, trading, clearing, and settlement of equities, bonds, and derivatives. The second is financial data & analytics, one of our fastest-growing core businesses in recent years. In addition, technology and trading solutions, offer high-performance data platforms, risk management tools, and compliance systems that serve as the technological backbone for financial market participants.
Here, I would like to focus on the data analytics business of the London Stock Exchange Group. This business can be traced back to the founding of Reuters in the 19th century. In its early days, Reuters delivered financial and economic information to Europe through means such as telegraph and even carrier pigeons. Over time, it gradually developed into a global leader in financial information services.
For many years, the Reuters data terminal was widely regarded as one of the most important information foundations of global finance. In 2008, Thomson Corporation of Canada acquired Reuters and formed Thomson Reuters, integrating resources across finance, law, technology, and other sectors.
Then in 2018, a consortium led by Blackstone Group acquired Thomson Reuters’ risk and financial data business, which was then established as Refinitiv. Refinitiv was not an entirely new brand—it was, in fact, a culmination of decades of global financial information services, consolidating a range of historically significant data platforms and effectively encompassing the entire evolution of the global financial data industry. After Refinitiv was integrated into the London Stock Exchange Group, data and analytics became LSEG’s fastest-growing business segment, as well as a core asset supporting financial technology innovation worldwide.
Today, the London Stock Exchange Group is no longer just a trading platform, but has grown into one of the most influential financial market infrastructure providers in the world. Every day, we process tens of millions of data points, covering real-time market data from over 95 countries and more than 500 exchanges worldwide; financial information from millions of companies; ESG ratings, macroeconomic indicators, industry research, and a wide range of alternative data. These data are embedded in the daily investment analysis, asset pricing, risk health, and compliance supervision of global financial institutions, and are an indispensable “digital base” in modern financial operations.
In the Chinese market, our development has also entered a new stage. We have long served a wide range of clients, including banks, securities firms, fund managers, insurance companies, as well as many industrial enterprises. Our solutions are now widely applied in trading, research, quantitative strategies, ESG investing, AI modeling, and cross-border investment. Meanwhile, our local team in China continues to expand, working closely with regulators, exchanges, universities, and research institutes to advance the standardization, compliance, and intelligent application of financial data.
It is particularly worth mentioning here that we are also supporting more and more Chinese clients “go global”, helping them to access global market data and information, and realize global asset allocation and risk management. Beyond comprehensive data coverage, we place strong emphasis on the exploration and application of financial innovation technologies. In particular, we are making significant investments in artificial intelligence, embedding AI capabilities into our data products. Our AI-driven tools are already being applied to text recognition, sentiment analysis, financial forecasting, market signal detection, and investment opportunity discovery. In doing so, we enable our clients to move beyond “data acquisition” towards “intelligent decision-making.”
At the same time, we are actively expanding our network of partners in China. We are committed to building a robust financial data ecosystem together with Chinese stakeholders, and to co-develop innovative data-driven applications. We firmly believe that the future of finance will be a system that is data-driven, AI-powered, and human–machine collaborative.
Finally, I would like to emphasize that the Chinese market is of strategic importance to London Stock Exchange Group, and the financial development of Central and Western China is especially crucial for us. Chengdu, as the financial center of Western China, benefits from a solid industrial base, dynamic market demand, and an open policy environment. We place great importance on supporting the digitalization and internationalization of finance in Chengdu and its surrounding regions. We also look forward to working more closely with local banks, securities firms, investment institutions, technology enterprises, government bodies, and universities, to jointly foster a prosperous and innovative digital financial ecosystem. LSEG is committed to bringing global perspectives, world-class data services, advanced technologies, and innovation resources to Western China, helping local financial institutions reach new levels of development.
Once again, I would like to thank the China Innovation Finance Institute | Chengdu for the kind invitation, and thank all of you for your attention. I sincerely look forward to more opportunities for collaboration in the future, and to visiting Chengdu more often for face-to-face exchanges.
Let us work hand in hand, share opportunities, and create the future together.
Thank you!
Director of Strategic Partnerships for China, London Stock Exchange Group
This article is compiled from the keynote speech delivered by Mr. Yucheng Zhao at the 2nd Chengdu Finance Week. The opinions expressed by authors do not necessarily reflect the views of the China Innovation Finance Institute.
