Technologies such as mobile payments, blockchain and Artificial Intelligence are transforming financial services, creating new opportunities for financial inclusion alongside new vulnerabilities in the international financial system. Financial technologies (FinTech) pose fundamental questions about the future of money, the concentration of power among new and established financial institutions and the ability of regulators in Europe and beyond to keep pace with disruptive technologies. The aim of this workshop is to build a new cohort of early career researchers and established scholars working on the political economy of Fintech and to map innovative research agendas concerning rapidly changing financial systems.
From algorithmic trading to cryptocurrencies, financial technologies are reshaping finance in ways that scholars are only beginning to understand. While there have been several studies of individual financial technologies since the start of the decade on topics such as regulatory sandboxes (Brown and Piroska 2022), digital banks (Hodson 2021), platform capitalism (Langley and Leyshon 2021) and online financial forums (Massoc and Lubda 2021), there have been few venues for political economists to discuss what FinTech means for the functioning, regulation and future of finance.
This workshop provides an opportunity for the ECPR to drive scholarly debates about the future of money at a time when Apple, Alphabet, Meta and X are assuming a prominent role in financial services. FinTech is presented as a force for inclusion, but it raises uncomfortable questions about transparency and privacy and can be a vehicle for criminality and nefarious political influence. Financial technologies have a special significance for the European Union (EU), which has sought first mover advantage in the regulation of open banking and crypto assets among other areas.
This workshop will benefit the discipline by bringing together a new cohort of scholars to take stock of how financial technologies are reshaping financial systems and the scholarly understanding of money, finance and power in contemporary models of capitalism and the international financial system. The workshop will stimulate new research agendas spanning political economy, regulatory governance and EU policy-making about technologies which have the potential both to democratise finance and drive the next financial crisis.
Brown, E. and Piroska, D. (2022) 'Governing fintech and fintech as governance: The regulatory sandbox, riskwashing, and disruptive social classification' New Political Economy, 27(1):19-32.
Hodson, D. (2021) 'The politics of FinTech: Technology, regulation, and disruption in UK and German retail banking' Public Administration, 99(4): 859-872.
Langley, P. and Leyshon, A. (2021) 'The platform political economy of FinTech: Reintermediation, consolidation and capitalisation' New Political Economy 26(3): 376-88.
Massoc, E. and Lubda, M. (2021) 'Social Media, Polarization and Democracy: A Multi-Methods Analysis of Polarized Users’ Interactions on Reddit’sr/WallStreetBets' LawFin Working Paper No. 28.
1: Is FinTech a genuine force for financial inclusion?
2: How are banks and banking systems responding to new financial technologies?
3: How are digital currencies transforming the functions of money and the functioning of macro-financial policy?
4: Does FinTech reveal the limits of the Brussels effect?
5: How can developed countries learn from FinTech innovation in emerging economies?
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