From March 8 to 9, the Smart Finance Track of the 2024–2025 Guangdong Vocational College Skills Competition concluded successfully at Shenzhen Polytechnic University (SZPU). The event was hosted by the Department of Education of Guangdong Province and organized by SZPU’s School of Economics. A total of 48 teams from 48 vocational colleges across the province, comprising approximately 200 contestants, participated in the competition. After intense competition, SZPU’s team won first prize in the provincial contest.

This team-based competition required each participating team to consist of four members. The event featured three core modules: Comprehensive Financial Skills, Digital Finance Operations, and Comprehensive Presentation. These modules were designed to assess participants’ all-around financial service capabilities, innovative thinking, professional ethics, and overall vocational competency. Through the model of “learning through competition, teaching through competition, and reform through competition,” the event aims to cultivate high-caliber technical talent for the modern financial sector.

The Comprehensive Financial Skills module tested students on their ability to handle banking, securities, and insurance tasks in the context of smart finance, including topics such as digital currency, inclusive finance, and green finance. The Digital Finance Operations module assessed their mastery of financial knowledge and their application of emerging technologies like big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain. In the Comprehensive Presentation module, students were required to complete competition tasks based on specific job scenarios in fintech applications, demonstrating teamwork and their ability to execute digital finance operations in real-world settings.

Keeping pace with the evolving trends in financial technology, the competition integrated traditional financial operations with digital finance practices. The event featured diverse scenarios including digital RMB, data-driven finance, AI finance, cloud finance, IoT finance, blockchain finance, banking fintech, securities fintech, insurance fintech, and regulatory technology (RegTech), reflecting the close alignment between financial education and the cutting edge of industry development.

(Reported by the School of Economics)