Understanding China’s financial markets can seem daunting. On one hand the State’s increasing market intervention can seem harsh and arbitrary. On the other hand, the financial system is opening up and continues to fund cutting-edge innovations across technology such as AI, digital currencies, and fintech. What explains this seeming contradiction? Professor Han-Shen Lin aims to put an end to any misconception that what happens in China’s financial system is beyond comprehension.

In his course, Chinese Financial Markets, Lin shares his academic insights and industry experience with graduate students in NYU Shanghai and NYU Stern’s joint  Master of Science program in Quantitative Finance (MSQF).

“The idea is to explore the incentives between the China providers and users of capital and how they might react to policy signals,” says Lin. “If the students can better understand that, they will be on a stronger path to a good financial career and beyond.”

Professor Lin during the Chinese Financial Markets course

Lin aims to provide students with a practitioner-oriented framework for succeeding in China's financial system as a young professional. Before joining NYU Shanghai as an Assistant Professor of Practice of Finance and the MSQF Capstone Director, Lin was interim Country Manager and the deputy head of Wells Fargo Bank China where he oversaw corporate business and helped lead country-wide risk and governance in the bank’s Shanghai-based branch. He also currently serves on the Board of Governors of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and was formerly their Financial Services Committee Chair. Lin’s broad exposure to financial institutions, corporations, academics, and regulators provided him with an operational insight into the evolving shape of the Chinese financial system.

“In the West, the market’s primary role is price discovery. In China, it has an additional role to be in the service of supporting government-defined development objectives; hence, state intervention can happen quite frequently at different levels.”

In one session, Lin used Evergrande as a case study on the trade-offs of bailing out the leveraged property giant versus the potential economic implications if the state did not, and how any policy actions might shape foreigners’ views of the investability of the China market. “The whole idea is to show the connections in the financial system and what role the market participants, including the government, can play to facilitate market stability,” says Lin.

To supplement his lectures and provide additional expert insights from industry, Lin also regularly invites guest speakers to class. During one session, Curt Ferguson, former China CEO of Coca Cola and now a venture capitalist at Ventech VC, introduced food and beverage startups that his company has raised funds for, and used them as vivid examples to show how the development of consumer culture in China has influenced how Ventech allocates its capital.

Lin’s course shows the inter-relationships between different financial institutions including fintechs. In so doing, he reveals that students can have a rewarding career in the broader financial sector no matter what institution-type (i.e. bank, securities, insurance, asset management, VC, fintech, etc.) they enter from. “I no longer limit my choices to securities companies. I started to look for opportunities in some fintech giants,” says Wu Boya, MSQF ‘22. “I realized that all these types of tech companies have businesses related to finance.”
Chinese Financial Markets also acts as a prelude to the MSQF Capstone Projects program which Lin spearheads and which students will undertake from November until their graduation in May. In the Capstone program, MSQF students will explore many of the same issues that Chinese Financial Markets introduces to them, only they’ll do it with the intent of analyzing practical business issues presented by capstone sponsors  representing top firms or investors across the financial institutions and corporate landscape.

Professor Lin advising students about their team project

“The Capstone gives students access to the senior leaders of financial institutions and corporations, who mentor them in progressing through the milestones of issue definition, data analysis, and presentation,” Lin says.  

Born and raised in the United States, Lin found continuous education to be helpful in navigating the complexity of China’s financial system. After completing a master’s degree in International Economics at the Johns Hopkins School of International Studies (SAIS), Lin came to China in 2006. However, he found that much of the financial knowledge about China that he learned from textbooks was outdated. “What might take ten years to change in the US can change within one or two years in China,” he says.

This realization prompted him to complete two graduate degrees in China while working at Wells Fargo: an Executive Master of Science in Global Finance, jointly offered by NYU Stern and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and a Master of China Commercial Law at Fudan University. He credits these studies for helping him to stay current with the changes that have cascaded through China’s financial environment over the past 15 years, from greater opening-up to evolutions in market structure and participants.

“There is a reason why I took all three graduate degrees. To appreciate how China’s financial system evolves, it’s useful to observe how China’s international relations, finance, and commercial legal developments all interact,” says Lin. “These insights are what I try to bring to my MSQF class.