Abstract:  With the deep integration of digital technology and financial services, the cross-border flow of personal financial data has become an irreversible trend. Extraterritorial data legislation attempts to seek balance between the freedom of cross-border flow of personal financial data and the protection of personal financial data. China’s personal financial data has experienced a shift from absolute localization requirements to conditional cross-border flow. The regulation of cross-border flow of personal financial data faces multiple difficulties: the norms of cross-border flow of personal financial data are not clear and unified; the security review does not take into considerations the financial industrial factors; and it is hard for China to exert influence on the formulation of its international rules. To further improve the regulation of cross-border flow of personal financial data, it is essential to move “forward” by establishing dynamic values of personal financial data, refining specific regulatory measures and building differentiated regulatory models for different scenarios of cross-border flow of personal financial data, and retreat “back” by identifying different legal interests concerned and actively seeking and exploring comprehensive and diversified paths to the protection of personal financial data under the current framework of legal system.

Key words: personal financial data, data cross-border flow, data flow freedom, data protection, financial regulation