FinTech Innovation: Review and Future Research Directions

Abstract

Copyright © 2021 by the authors. This paper aims to survey the most recent theoretical and empirical literature on FinTech innovations in the financial sector. The purpose of this review is to investigate how FinTech Innovations are altering and reshaping the universe of financial service providers, and challenging traditional business models and infrastructures. This study summarizes the opportunities and challenges of FinTech Innovations and the implications to the legacy incumbent financial services companies. FinTech innovation fusions technological capabilities potentially provide innovative financial products and services to foster financial inclusion, streamline processes, and lower costs to clients. FinTech can bring greater competition and diversity in financial services. Further, this research interprets the findings from the lens of institutional theory to advance the theoretical understanding of social changes facilitated by FinTech innovations in revolutionary areas in banking (lending, payment), security trading (real-time settlement, automated investment), and insurance (personalized experience). The investigation points out the regulatory concerns highlighted in the scholarly works, suggesting collaboration is critical to enable multi-stakeholders to anticipate and foster pro-innovative, transparent regulations to deliver meaningful benefits to innovation and financial inclusion. Lastly, this review identifies future research areas to further enrich knowledge to create a future-proof, more efficient, and resilient financial ecosystem to enhance financial stability in the digital era.