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Digital Finance

Smart Data Analytics, Investment Innovation, and Financial Technology

Publishing model:
Hybrid

Digital Finance - Call for Papers: Fintech – Finance, Technologies, and the Society

The financial industry is experiencing an extremely important disruptive moment, the fintech revolution. Thanks to new technologies, a large number of financial services has been deeply renewed, and the customers experience has been deeply change. Moreover, new entrants, start-ups, corporations and big technology players, enters in activities which used to be traditionally reserved to banks and insurers.

From an academic point of view, the fintech revolution has opened the door to extensive applications of Artificial Intelligence to solve financial problems. An example is asset allocation, where e.g. reinforcement learning tools are considered as alternative to classical methodologies.
Cryptoassets are nowadays considered as risky assets which deserve a thorough study. Smart contracts opened the door to new financial instruments. These are few examples of new topics that need a deep and rigorous academic analysis.

The growth of financial technology does not only disrupt the financial industry, it also offers opportunities for the society. For example, fintech can facilitate the offering of financial services to un- and underbanked. Offering financial services via mobiles for examples brings access to cheaper lending, international money transfer (remittances), and better savings/investment conditions to people who are excluded to these services or only have limited access to it due to geographical, social, or economic reasons. Fintech allows for alternative access to financing (‘financial inclusion”), e.g. through peer-to-peer lending, crowdfunding, or initial coin offerings, or offer machine-based services such as robo-advising. Fintech also offers a form of democratization of investment for individuals (including its risks) and funding to for social value creation to social enterprises or projects to counter social problems, e.g. via crowdfunding. In this way, fintech can have positive social impact, e.g. through peer-to-peer lending by empowering women or support socially vulnerable groups such as immigrants. Fintech may also foster sustainable finance. Especially when it comes to analyzing all kinds of data (ESG scores from different providers, social network activities, news data, weather data, financial data etc.) and incorporating it to investment or credit decisions. Lastly, fintech, and the use of AI/ML may also come with risks for society, e.g., when it comes to systematically discriminating certain groups due to mal-trained algorithms or the dependency on specific systems.

Objective and topics:

For this Special Issue, we invite rigorous and timely theoretical, empirical, qualitative, or quantitative research that develops a better understanding of the fintech phenomenon. We support studies that will generate both practical and theoretical implications.

To this end, and in line with the aim and scope of the journal, we are interested in high-quality submissions that embrace diverse methodological approaches and theoretical frameworks in all areas of Fintech (banking, asset management, insurance, payments, capital markets, internet of things) providing a multidisciplinary venue.

Submissions are welcome in all Fintech research fields such as (but not limited to):

  • theoretical analysis of the fintech domain (finance and economic analysis);
  • machine learning applications to finance;
  • cryptocurrencies and digital currencies (like CBDC);
  • blockchain technologies, smart contracts;
  •  big data analysis, nowcasting, and text analysis in finance;
  •  network analysis in finance;
  •  behavioral finance;
  • fintech and its social impact (financial inclusion, environment, equality, ...);
  • crowdfunding, social/P2P lending to increase access to finance and broaden the investor base;
  • fintech as enabler of sustainable finance/impact investing;
  •  risks of machine-based decision making in finance;
  • ethics and fintech to prevent a potential new financial crisis;
  • big data and fintech (increasing privacy, cyber security);
  • regulation of fintech markets to catalyze societal value creation. 

This special issue follows up on the International Fintech Research Conference (https://www.fintechlab.it/fintech_conference2022/ (this opens in a new tab)), and the European Alternative Finance Research Conference 2022 (http://www.uu.nl/ecaf (this opens in a new tab)).

Instructions for Submission:

For submission, authors are requested to access the Springer Nature submission system at the following URL: https://submission.nature.com/new-submission/42521/3 (this opens in a new tab). Choose "Research" when starting a new submission and in the details of the submission go to "Collection" and select "Special Issue: Fintech - Finance, technologies, and the Society" from a drop-down menu.

Potential authors are reminded that all papers that are finally accepted for this special issue will be subject to format restrictions complying with the publisher's standards. To speed up publication, and to ensure a unified layout throughout the special issue, authors are likely advised to use a LaTex. Springer's LaTex package can be used to prepare source files (please choose the formatting option "smallextended'"). The authors are highly recommended not to modify the class file by introducing personal settings and/or definitions. Word files are also accepted.

Editors of the Special Issue:

Daniele Marazzina and Emilio Barucci – Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Ronald Kleverlaan, Friedemann Polzin, and Thomas Walther – Utrecht University, Netherlands

Important Dates:

Deadline for paper submission: April 30, 2023

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