In recent years, Financial Technology (FinTech) has become one of the most popular technology development fields in Taiwan. The College of Management of National Chung Cheng University (CCU), following the establishment of the FinTech Digital Sandbox P.O.C Base in Taiwan’s Central District with the FinTechSpace last year, was invited to participate in the “FinTech Taipei 2022”, the largest FinTech innovation exchange event in Taiwan. Students from the CCU College of Management set up booths in the Exhibition Hall 1 of Taipei World Trade Center for two consecutive days to display the “SOON FUN CAR Ride-Sourcing Platform”, developed by the team. The ride-sourcing platform combines the business model of financial services such as virtual currency with the sharing economy, hoping to solve the difficulty of inconvenient transportation in remote areas and create a sustainable ecosphere.

CCU College of Management has been actively involved in the field of FinTech in recent years. Wen-Chang Lin, associate dean of CCU College of Management and director of the Master Program in Financial Technology, said that the CCU College of Management has cooperated with the CCU Center for Innovative Research on Aging Society (CIRAS), using the center’s data resources on senior citizens, to develop Senior FinTech together, and create a senior sustainable ecosphere. The CCU team participating in the FinTech Taipei 2022 is composed of teachers and students from the Master Program in Financial Technology of College of Management, the Department of Finance, and the Department of Information Management. Among them, the students from the Master Program in Financial Technology, which was just established in August 2022, had worked with professors to conceive proposals before enrolling in the summer vacation, and presented the results at the Fintech Taipei 2022 Exhibition.

"Many elderly people living in remote rural areas are restricted in their movements due to the inconvenient transportation." Wen-Chang Lin said that the result displayed by CCU in the exhibition focused on addressing the needs of remote areas. As a result, under the guidance of Jean Yu, assistant professor of the CCU Department of Finance, the team of CCU Master Program in Financial Technology started from the concept of ride-sourcing, combined with the establishment and connection of APIs, and the virtual community currency, issued by CCU to launch the "SOON FUN CAR ride-sourcing platform". Both the ride provider and the ride demander only need to enter their respective needs on the ride-sourcing platform developed by the CCU team, and the platform will assist in matching, so as to solve the problems of inconvenient transportation in remote areas.

This ride-sourcing platform uses the insurance calculation API of Cathay Life Insurance, which is available in the FinTech Digital Sandbox, to add functions of casualty insurance, travel insurance and other insurance to the platform. “This project of ride-sourcing platform also reflects the goal of promoting the concept of ESG sustainability and creating a sustainable ecosphere." Jean Yu said that the fare payment method is to use the "Ethereum Test Chain", a blockchain platform, as the basic smart contract, and the ride-sourcing platform developed by CCU currently uses Ether as the payment method. In this case, in addition to the convenience of users who do not need to carry cash, virtual currency can also reduce the handling fees of intermediaries such as EasyCard and credit cards.

“Facing the ever-changing industry trend of FinTech, we are also on the way of learning.” Hong-Ru Huang, team leader of the SOON FUN CAR, said that students in the Master Program in Financial Technology came from different backgrounds, and how to integrate and apply everyone's expertise is a challenge. The team has familiarized themselves with each other's capabilities and ideas through jointly brainstorming the proposal many times, and also improved their communication and knowledge exchange skills in each conversation and the friction of different arguments. The CCU team hopes to convey the belief of CCU College of Management in promoting sustainable technology services through the exhibition, and expects that the ride-sourcing platform will expand to Minsyong Township in the Chiayi City, and even more other communities in the future.

The biennial Fintech Taipei Exhibition is hosted by the Financial Supervisory Commission and returns to physical exhibition this year. The exhibition gathered elites from all walks of life in government-industry-university-institute to expand the FinTech ecosystem and accelerate inclusive financing. At the same time, according to the actual needs of domestic FinTech development, the exhibition also helped explore potential FinTech innovation demonstration groups from various aspects. Wen-Chang Lin pointed out that the CCU team worked hard to complete the project of ride-sourcing platform within 3 months, highlighting that if the University wants to develop FinTech software, it needs a digital sandbox to provide free resources and data testing to achieve research and development results that are closer to real life. The exhibition of the CCU team was also awarded the honor of "Excellent Publication of API Application of the FinTech Digital Sandbox P.O.C Base" by the exhibitor. Therefore, it attracted inquiries from many financial holding and start-up teams, hoping to seek more cooperation opportunities in the future.