My mainland friends and I often engage in intense debates about whether or not Hong Kong has already become marginalized financially.

"The Hong Kong people are living an old dream," one friend said with a sigh last week. "They are being left behind by the Internet tide - they don't even use Taobao."

Another lamented: "Their mindset is lagging behind. How many young people know about O2O (online to offline business model), or P2P (peer-to-peer lending through Internet), or crowd funding?