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To FinTech and Beyond

Journal: Review of Financial Studies

Date: 20190501

Author: Goldstein, Itay; Jiang, Wei; Karolyi, G. Andrew

Abstract:
FinTech is about the introduction of new technologies into the financial sector, and it is now revolutionizing the financial industry. In 2017, when the academic finance community was not actively researching FinTech, the editorial team of the Review of Financial Studies launched a competition to develop research proposals focused on this topic. This special issue is the result. In this introductory article, we describe the recent FinTech phenomenon and the novel editorial protocol employed for this special issue following the Registered Reports format. We discuss what we learned from the submitted proposals about the field of FinTech and which ones we selected to be completed and ultimately come out in this special issue. We also provide several observations to help guide future research in the emerging area of FinTech.

Link: Google Scholar

Key Findings

FinTech Research Growth

156 research proposals were submitted from 409 authors across 183 universities worldwide, demonstrating explosive growth in FinTech academic research

Major FinTech Areas

Research clusters around peer-to-peer lending (47 proposals), blockchain (28 proposals), and big data applications (27 proposals)

Author Demographics

63% of submissions came from early-career researchers (PhD students and Assistant Professors), with broad international representation

Distribution of FinTech Research Topics

  • Peer-to-peer lending dominates research focus with 47 proposals
  • Blockchain and big data each represent about 17% of submissions
  • Emerging areas like robo-advisors and social media have smaller but significant representation

Geographic Distribution of FinTech Researchers

  • US leads with 49.9% of contributing researchers
  • China represents 11.5% of contributors, showing strong Asian presence
  • European countries collectively represent significant portion with UK, Germany leading

Academic Rank of Contributors

  • Assistant Professors form largest group of contributors
  • Strong representation from PhD students indicates future growth potential
  • Balance between junior and senior researchers shows broad appeal

Contribution and Implications

  • First comprehensive academic initiative to systematically study FinTech through registered reports format
  • Identifies key research priorities in blockchain, lending platforms, and big data applications
  • Creates foundation for future research agenda in FinTech

Data Sources

  • Topics chart based on Figure 5 showing distribution of 156 proposals across major topic areas
  • Geography chart based on Figure 3 showing country distribution of 409 authors
  • Academic rank chart based on Figure 2 showing distribution of authors by academic position