Top warehouse in Far East to become fintech park
The former Yung Shine Warehouse at 61 Yangshupu Road will undergo a major renovation to become an office space for the Shanghai Fintech Park.
A nearly century-old warehouse in the North Bund will be developed into the city's fintech park for companies in the financial technology sector.
The Yung Shine Warehouse in Hongkou District, once the largest storage site in the Far East and dating back to 1930s, will be converted into the Shanghai Fintech Park, which was unveiled at the Ninth North Bund Wealth and Culture Forum on Saturday.
The mammoth structure, in Baroque style and located at 61 Yangshupu Road, will undergo a major renovation to become an office space covering 37,360 square meters. It will house about 200 fintech companies and institutions, the district government announced during the forum.
Financial technology, often shortened to fintech, is an emerging industry that uses technology to improve activities in finance. The use of smartphones for mobile banking, investment services and cryptocurrency are examples of technologies that make financial services more accessible to the general public.
The fintech park aims to create an "ecosphere" integrating both advanced technologies and efficient financial capital flows within three years, said Zhao Yongfeng, the director of Hongkou district.
Officials unveil the Shanghai Fintech Park at the Ninth North Bund Wealth and Culture Forum on Saturday.
An artistic rendition of the Shanghai Fintech Park, which will be renovated from the historical Yung Shine Warehouse.
Hongkou has lured one ninth of China's mutual funds by tapping its regional advantages and offering favorable policies to support the development of financial services. As of the end of 2018, the district is home to 1,520 financial institutions, which manage over 5 trillion yuan (US$744.5 billion) of assets, Zhao told the forum.
A financial “golden triangle” has formed between the North Bund financial zone, Lujiazui in the Pudong New Area, and the Bund.
The six-story historical warehouse building later became a commercial and office building owned by the city's state-backed retail conglomerate Bailian Group. It was listed as a district-level heritage structure in 2013.
An antique Otis cargo elevator installed in 1933 has been preserved in the building. With a load capacity of 16 tons, the elevator was once dubbed the "No.1 Elevator" in the Far East.
The structure has been shut down for the renovation. Workers were dismantling ATM machines in a bank on its ground floor over the weekend. According to an artistic rendition of the future fintech park, the bank will become an "Artificial Intelligence Bank."
Before the building was turned into the warehouse, it was once home to the city's first spring mattress company, the US Simmons based in Chicago, around the 1920s. Its products became so popular that locals have used the company name Simmons as the expression for spring mattresses up until this day.
The front side of the former Yung Shine Warehouse at 61 Yangshupu Road.
The back side of the former Yung Shine Warehouse on 61 Yangshupu Road.
