Welcome - Foundations of Fintech BUSI 6215   Foundations of Fintech
CREDIT HOURS: 3
The financial services landscape has been strongly impacted by emerging technologies and financial innovation stemming from disruptors on the fringe of the industry and incumbents' urge to respond to these developments. Defined as organizations combining innovative business models and technology to enable, enhance and disrupt financial services (EY, 2017), FinTech (or financial technology) has the potential to profoundly change the way banks conduct their business. Once regarded as a threat, the financial technology industry nowadays attracts investments from almost every global bank, lured by the promise of significant cost savings and efficiency gains. This course exposes students to the rapidly evolving FinTech landscape. After a high-level overview of the traditional financial system to ensure the class is familiar with the basic financial industry structure, we will proceed into looking at how this industry is disrupted by new technologies. We examine the main changes happening in the financial industry and the factors driving the unprecedented growth in the use of technology; what FinTech is, the main trends related to Fintech, the components of the FinTech ecosystem, and the emerging Fintech innovations. The first wave of Fintech led to the unbundling of banking, i.e., fintech startups have challenged banks vertically on one of their core functions by providing better and cheaper options. This part will focus on Fintech companies competing with incumbents in the personal finance, payments, lending, capital markets, wealth management, insurance, and money transfer sectors. The next generation of Fintechs that are moving beyond their initial mono-product and into rebundling will also be examined. We will also discuss the threat to the sector posed by the Big Tech companies that are moving into financial services. A distinctive component of the course will be regularly focused on aspects around the launching of a Fintech start-up.
FORMAT: Lecture
PREREQUISITES: BUSI 5201