Abstract :
The intersection of finance and technology, known as fintech, has resulted in the dramatic growth of innovations and has changed the entire financial landscape. While fintech has a critical role to play in democratizing credit access to the unbanked and thin-file consumers around the globe, those consumers who are currently well served also turn to fintech for faster services and greater transparency. Fintech, particularly the blockchain, has the potential to be disruptive to financial systems and intermediation. Our aim in this paper is to provide a comprehensive fintech literature survey with relevant research studies and policy discussion around the various aspects of fintech. The topics include marketplace and peer-to-peer lending, credit scoring, alternative data, distributed ledger technologies, blockchain, smart contracts, cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings, central bank digital currency, robo-advising, quantitative investment and trading strategies, cybersecurity, identity theft, cloud computing, use of big data and artificial intelligence and machine learning, identity and fraud detection, anti-money laundering, Know Your Customers, natural language processing, regtech, insuretech, sandboxes, and fintech regulations.
Introduction:
The rapid advance in financial technology (fintech) in recent years has played an important role in how financial products and services are produced, delivered, and consumed. Fintech has become one of the most popular discussion topics recently, primarily because of its potential disruption to the entire financial system. There has been a dramatic digital transformation in the financial landscape. The term fintech is, however, a broad term, and it tends to mean different things to different people. The goal of this paper is to describe the various aspects of fintech and its role in each segment of the financial market and the associated impact on consumers and the financial system overall. A great deal of data have been collected in recent years. For example, as of 2016, IBM estimated that 90 percent of all the global data was collected in the past year. The amount of data collection accelerated even more between 2016 and 2020. There have been new opportunities for data to be monetized, such as through data aggregation. Big data (including data from nontraditional sources and trended data) have been collected and used widely, in conjunction with advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for digital identity and fraud detection, sales and marketing, security trading strategies, risk pricing and credit decisions, and so forth. More than 2 billion consumers are currently excluded from financial systems around the globe (especially in less developed countries such as Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Pakistan) who could potentially benefit from the use of more data and complex algorithms to access credit. There also have been new questions related to data ownership and the ethical use of data, such as who should have control over the ability to aggregate, use, and share data to safeguard consumer privacy and to avoid systemic misuse of consumer data. Cloud storage and cloud computing have also played increasing roles in payment systems, financial services, and the financial system overall. Financial data and payment data have been stored in the cloud, and cloud computing has made it possible for many fintech innovations, such as real-time payment and instantaneous credit evaluations/decisions. Firms no longer need to commit a large investment (usually unaffordable for smaller firms) to in-house technology, but they could outsource to the cloud computing service providers and share the cost with other firms. This leveled the playing field; size is no longer the most important determinant for success. Consumers’ preferences have also adapted to prioritize faster services and greater convenience and transparency through online services and applications. There have been concerns among regulators about the impact on the safety and soundness and stability of the financial systems (e.g., the impact 3 on the payment system when a cloud service platform is rendered nonoperational, the exposure to a greater risk of cyberattack, and other similar events). Blockchain and smart contracts are the buzzwords in the fintech community, partly because blockchain is the technology underlying bitcoin transactions. Blockchain and other digital ledger technologies (DLT) have also been used in creating various cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings (ICOs), other payment applications, and smart contracts — thus, leading some to believe that blockchain has the potential to become the mainstream financial technology of the future. There has been some disappointing evidence on the role and potential of blockchain in that it may not be as disruptive as initially expected, and one of the main obstacles seems to be its scalability. For example, bitcoin transactions take about 10 minutes to clear, and it is expected to take longer as the block length gets longer over the years. While thousands of tech start-ups and other tech experts have been working to resolve the issue, permissioned blockchain platforms have benefited some segments of the economy through their use for identity detection, supply chain management, digital-asset-backed lending, and securitization. Fintech activities have been progressing quickly, penetrating all areas of the financial system. Fintech has produced great benefits to a large number of consumers around the world and has made the financial system more efficient. The rapid growth of bank-like services provided by fintech firms has raised potential concerns among bank supervisors. There have also been legal challenges and concerns associated with fintech around consumer privacy and the potential fintech disruption to overall financial stability. While fintech could greatly improve credit access and enhance efficiencies (providing faster, better, or cheaper services) in the financial system, risk cannot be completely eliminated. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive summary of what research studies have found so far, what the experts (academic, industry, and regulators) are working on, and the potential evolving nature of fintech’s impact on consumer privacy and wellbeing, the structure of the financial and payment systems, the role of financial intermediation, and the effectiveness of existing regulatory policies. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we discuss recent enhanced systems for credit scoring using AI/ML and alternative data, the roles of marketplace lending and peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, and digital banking and investment services. Section 3 discusses how fintech has played a big role in digital payment, such as e-wallet and allowing a large number of the unbanked population around the world to be included in financial systems for the first time. The roles of alternative data in financial inclusion, improving credit access, and more accurate risk pricing will also be discussed. 4 Section 4 describes the roles of blockchain, other distributed ledger technologies (DLTs), and smart contracts. As mentioned earlier, these have been the underlying technologies for cryptoassets and initial coin offerings (ICOs), which will be discussed in Section 5. There are frictions in the current payment system, especially cross-border payments. Consumers have come to expect faster or real-time payments with minimal fees. Digital currencies could potentially deliver these, and the payment processes have been involving rapidly toward a cash-lite (or potentially cashless) economy. Section 5 will also discuss the developments around the potential for central banks to issue fiat digital currencies, so-called central bank digital currency (CBDC). This idea of CBDC acknowledges that trust is the most important factor in payments, and private sectors may not be able to accomplish the goal of originating and supporting the value of the digital currencies it issues. There are also fears around CBDC: Several key considerations need to be incorporated into CBDC’s design to avoid adverse impact on the financial system and the ability to conduct effective monetary policy. Section 6 deals with fintech’s roles in securities trading and markets, such as the highfrequency trading or program trading that uses big data and ML algorithms to deliver superior performance. Section 7 discusses the impact of fintech on cybersecurity, which has been one of the top concerns among corporate CEOs and senior management teams. While the advanced technology has delivered vast benefits, the technology has also allowed for more sophisticated cyberattacks. Given all these innovations and rapid digital transformation, the existing regulations need to adapt to keep up with the new financial landscape. The increasing roles of BigTech and cloud computing in financial services, their potential impact on interconnectedness between financial institutions, and how these activities are likely to evolve in the near future are discussed in Section 8. There are just a handful of providers for all financial institutions, and these providers are currently not subject to supervision by bank regulators. There have been concerns about quality control, data security, and a possible conflict of interest that need to be addressed in the new fintech regulatory framework. Some of the technologies have also been used to assist regulators in regulatory compliance examination, such as the natural language processing (NLP) and the ML techniques used in RegTech, which will be discussed in Section 9, along with the various factors to be considered in designing fintech regulations to protect consumers and the financial systems while continuing to promote responsible fintech innovations. Finally, Section 10 provides conclusions and policy implications, such as those related to open banking policy, ethical use of consumer data, and whether a cashless economy is expected in 5 the near future. Quantum computing has also been transitioning from theory into practice, with potential implications/disruptions in the financial services industry and the overall economy in the coming decade. It is debatable whether the future mainstream financial technology will be blockchain and DLTs, quantum computing, or something else — and how the industry and policymakers can best be prepared to keep pace with evolving technologies and the new adoption. We will also discuss potential directions for future fintech research.
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