Changing financial system architecture under the influence of the fintech market: A literature review

In the past seven decades, especially since the Global Financial Crisis, the financial system’s architecture has changed significantly around the world. New financial market entrants, such as fintech start-up companies, offer financial products and services more efficiently than established financial institutions (especially banks and insurance companies), bypassing the regulatory requirements established intermediaries must comply with. Despite the heterogeneity in the fintech concept, we use this term to consider innovations in financial products and services based on emerging information and communication technologies (i.e., information technology and mobile connectivity) as solutions that are changing the financial structure worldwide. Although the share of new participants in the financial system is rather small compared to the incumbents, fintech innovations are continuously advancing (e.g., crowdfunding, marketplace lending, cryptocurrencies, copy trading, robo-advice, insurtech, etc.), and their share is growing fast. This paper provides an overview of the fintech market and its impact (actual and potential) on the financial system’s architecture based on a comprehensive review of the theoretical and empirical literature