Lo sviluppo del FinTech. Opportunità e rischi per l’industria finanziaria nell’era digitale

FinTech is a new part of the financial industry that is radically innovating the way financial services are built and offered. In this paper we analyse the characteristics of FinTech, their activities and the relative risks, highlighting analogies and differences with the activities performed by the financial intermediaries and the financial markets that are subject to specific regulation. In general, the study underlines the opportunity to pursue an effective balance between the urge to stimulate innovation and competition in the financial markets to bring benefits to the customers, on the one hand, and the need to ensure market stability both at micro and macro-level, transparency and fairness towards customers, as well as prevention of illegal activities, on the other hand. Additionally, the paper provides an overview of the main strategies that incumbents are following in the new market conditions.