FinTech Innovations: Banks and Small Business
Paper Session
Monday, Jan. 4, 2021 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (EST)
- Chair: Adair Morse, University of California-Berkeley
Nationalistic Labor Policies Hinder FinTech Innovation
Abstract
Banning traditional financial companies from hiring high-skilled foreign nationals deters their extensive, cutting-edge FinTech innovation. We consider the Employ American Workers Act (EAWA), which banned firms in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) from hiring any foreign nationals under an H-1B visa until the full repayment of TARP funding. We exploit the differential timing in which banks were subject to the EAWA, irrespective of when they entered TARP, to document that the ban did cut foreign hires but also reduced both the quantity and quality of innovation, despite parallel pre trends. The effects were stronger for banks that used to hire a higher share of STEM workers through the H-1B program before the EAWA. Affected banks dropped patenting in strategic areas such as business methods, cybersecurity and fintech services. The ``Employ American" legislation constitutes a regulatory constraint that shapes the structure of financial service industry faced with fintech competition.The Real Impact of FinTech: Evidence from Mobile Payment Technology
Abstract
We utilize the introduction of QR-code payment technology by the largest bank in Singapore in 2017 to study how mobile payment technology reshapes economic activities and stimulates business creation. After the introduction, business-to-consumer industries witnessed a higher growth rate of business creation by 8.9% per month relative to business-to-business industries, with the effect driven by small firms and more pronounced among industries with a higher cost of cash handling. Underlying this pattern is a strong adoption of mobile payment and a large decline in cash ATM withdrawals during the post-shock period, as well as closure of ATM machines by the bank. The reduced transaction cost also allows consumers to increase their spending capacity, which further fosters business growth. Interestingly, part of the increased consumer demand is captured by credit card spending, which associates with more credit card opening and higher credit limit provision by the bank. We develop a model to rationalize the responses and extend the empirical evidence to understand the key structural parameters that drive the effects of mobile payment technology.What is Fueling FinTech Lending? The Role of Banking Market Structure
Abstract
Financial technology (FinTech) firms are growing rapidly, and we investigate what is fueling part of this growth. FinTech firms are likely to enter markets where there is the least resistance from existing suppliers. We focus on small business credit, for which commercial banks are the leading incumbent suppliers. We test whether the disappearance of small banks and in-market bank lenders with advantages in serving small businesses using "soft" information lending technologies may underlie the growth of FinTech lending platforms versus the reduction in supply of small business credit by large and out-of-market banks that use similar "hard" information lending technologies to FinTech platforms. We find that FinTech loan volume is positively related to the presence of large bank branches and out-of-market lending in the cross section. We also find in panel results that FinTech volume increases when lending decreases by large, out-of-market banks. Additional results suggest that FinTech loan volume matters primarily for the very small firms and that additional FinTech loans are relatively safe.Discussant(s)
Yael Hochberg
,
Rice University
Shai Bernstein
,
Stanford University
Xinxin Wang
,
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Erik Gilje
,
University of Pennsylvania
JEL Classifications
- G0 - General