Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

The Effects Of Covid-19 On The Mobile Payment Banking System, Sydney Mason

Senior Honors Theses

This study includes an examination of the effect of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on electronic payment apps. Ever since the pandemic caused a global shutdown, the banking industry was forced to adjust their usual operations and adopt new technological advancements that would allow for contactless payment. Consumers, worried about contracting the virus through the physical exchange of currency, resorted to utilizing payment apps. This contributed to the increase in electronic payment usage. This research addresses the effect of COVID-19 on three different electronic payment apps, Venmo, PayPal, and Zelle. A comparative longitudinal analysis shows the increase in total transactions from …

Financial Characteristics Of Mobile Banking And Payment Users In The United States, Jordan Mitchell, Xiao Li, Doug Steel, Phillip Decker

Journal of Global Business Insights

This study aims to examine the personal finance characteristics of mobile banking and mobile payment users in the United States. To achieve this goal, we used the 2018 National Financial Capability Study, which surveyed over 27,000 American adults regarding their personal financial standing and behaviors. By using ordinary least squares models, our results indicated that the use of mobile banking and mobile payment technology was associated with lower age, Non-White Ethnicity, higher income, higher debt load, debt types (auto, student, credit card, and predatory), and spending more than one’s income. These results reveal that the higher one’s income, financial liabilities, …

Determinants Influencing The Adoption Of Mobile Banking By Women In Bangladesh, Soma Dey, Sacchidanand Majumder

Journal of Global Business Insights

Women’s mobile banking adoption is linked to several advantages, including empowering women, enhancing investment in women-owned businesses, and decreasing extreme poverty.This study explores the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics that affect women’s mobile banking adoption in Bangladesh using Bangladesh Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS; 2020) data. In this study, 12,147 ever-married women aged 15-49 are included in the analysis. The chi-square test is used to examine the effect of socioeconomic and demographic factors on women’s mobile banking adoption. Then, the enter method of a binary logistic regression model is applied to identify the factors most strongly affiliated with it. The result …

Towards Algorithmic Justice: Human Centered Approaches To Artificial Intelligence Design To Support Fairness And Mitigate Bias In The Financial Services Sector, Jihyun Kim

CMC Senior Theses

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has positively transformed the Financial services sector but also introduced AI biases against protected groups, amplifying existing prejudices against marginalized communities. The financial decisions made by biased algorithms could cause life-changing ramifications in applications such as lending and credit scoring. Human Centered AI (HCAI) is an emerging concept where AI systems seek to augment, not replace human abilities while preserving human control to ensure transparency, equity and privacy. The evolving field of HCAI shares a common ground with and can be enhanced by the Human Centered Design principles in that they both put humans, the user, at …

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

The Economics Of Financial Scams: Evidence From Initial Coin Offerings, Kenny Phua, Bo Sang, Chi Shen Wei, Yang Yu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine the economics of financial scams by analyzing the market for initial coin offerings (ICOs). Using data snapshots of 5,873 ICOs, we find that irregularities in ICO characteristics across listing websites predict higher scam risk and are likely intentional. These patterns are consistent with a model where malicious issuers maximize profits by using irregularities to screen for naïve investors. Almost half of the ICOs in our sample may be scams, amounting to more than U.S. $6 billion in losses. Our results draw attention to the frequent use of screening mechanisms in financial scams.

Analysis Of Us Airline Stocks Performance Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (Lda), Amina Issoufou Anaroua

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

Various events, such as changes in the interest rate or the hijacking of a commercial aircraft, can lead to significant shifts in airline stock performance. This study aimed to measure the impact of aviation-related news announcements on the stock performance of US airlines, focusing on different topics. The dataset included aviation news covering airlines, airports, regulations, safety, accidents, manufacturers, MRO, incidents, aviation training, general aviation, and others obtained from Aviation Voice. To uncover patterns that could explain the movements of US airline stocks, a natural language processing technique called Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) was employed. The process involved text mining …

Money Changers Have Their Own Fintech Disruption To Grapple With, Aurobindo Ghosh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In a commentary, SMU Assistant Professor of Finance (Education) and Director of the Citi Foundation-SMU Financial Literacy Programme for Young Adults Aurobindo Ghosh discussed the outlook for money changers in a world of multi-currency apps. He however noted money changers still have a role to play, and shared his views on how money changers can respond to technological disruption.

From Hype To Reality: A Critical Analysis Of Blockchain-Based Regenerative Finance, Simon J.D. Schillebeeckx, Marco Schletz

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The authors dive deep into the field of ReFi, a concept that enhances financial practices through decentralization and focuses on environmental and societal systems. The authors highlight several key problems of the space and point out that genuinely disruptive ReFi models are still in their infancy. The good news is that ReFi’s potentials are manifold and exciting. In the not-too-distant future, we might see financial applications backed by blockchain that can enhance data credibility, exchangeability, and transparency to redefine how corporations create and apportion environmental value.

Assessing The Effect Of Fintech Adoption On Country's Productivity, Mai Metwally

Theses and Dissertations

The relationship between total factor productivity of countries, for both low-income and high-income countries, and Fintech adoption will be examined in this paper. Also, a background on Fintech history will be discussed and explored briefly along with Fintech future risks and opportunities. Starting off with the importance of TFP, it is also known to be "Solow residual" (named after American Economist "Robert Solow"). TFP shows and examines the performance along with efficiency of the entity or country. It shows how well and efficient the firm or country in transforming its inputs to the desired outputs. Moreover, it is the ratio …

Combatting Consolidation In The United States Banking Industry: An Analysis Of Performance And Strategy Of First National Bank Of Clarksdale, Lydia Johnsey

Honors Theses

This thesis is based on a submission with group members in the 2023 Case Study Competition for the Conference of State Bank Supervisors. This thesis includes additional background information not included in the original competition paper in order to clarify the competition standards and goal of the paper. This thesis evaluates First National Bank of Clarksdale with respect to two areas: financial analysis, which evaluates earnings performance, loan portfolio composition, asset growth, capital levels, and liquidity of the bank; and strategy, which includes staffing, succession, training, and technology strategies instituted by bank management. Data from the bank’s Uniform Bank Performance …

Exploring Social Media Sentiment Analysis In Relation To Common Stock, Landon Johnson

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

Many institutions, investors, and researchers have sought to gain insights into consumer attitudes and behaviors by leveraging social media. However, trading strategies utilizing social sentiment have been observed to often provide returns roughly equivalent to or less than those of standard market indexes. This observation raises several questions: does the efficacy of social sentiment analysis vary from firm to firm? Are price or volume directly correlated with social sentiment? Does social sentiment display any predictive ability? The following analysis attempted to answer these questions by comparing one week’s worth of data from Twitter users to price and volume data from …

Man Vs. Machine: The Future Of Financial Advising, Rylee Driggs

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research evaluates the potential impact of artificial intelligence on the financial advising industry, particularly regarding the demand for human financial advisors within the industry as artificial intelligence rapidly evolves. With the recent launch of ChatGPT, a cutting-edge AI chatbot, the role of financial advisors, which previously seemed mostly exempt from any technological alternatives due to the essential emotional intelligence of a human financial advisor, is potentially at risk for replacement. This research provides an in-depth analysis on the feasibility of artificial intelligence replicating necessary humanlike characteristics of a human financial advisor and utilizes results of an anonymous survey where …

Fraud Pattern Detection For Nft Markets, Andrew Leppla, Jorge Olmos, Jaideep Lamba

SMU Data Science Review

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) enable ownership and transfer of digital assets using blockchain technology. As a relatively new financial asset class, NFTs lack robust oversight and regulations. These conditions create an environment that is susceptible to fraudulent activity and market manipulation schemes. This study examines the buyer-seller network transactional data from some of the most popular NFT marketplaces (e.g., AtomicHub, OpenSea) to identify and predict fraudulent activity. To accomplish this goal multiple features such as price, volume, and network metrics were extracted from NFT transactional data. These were fed into a Multiple-Scale Convolutional Neural Network that predicts suspected fraudulent activity based …

Steering Steadily In The Post-Pandemic World, Chartsiri Sophopanich, Chin Tiong Tan

Asian Management Insights

Chartsiri Sophonpanich, President of Bangkok Bank, speaks with Tan Chin Tiong about the future of banking in Thailand and the region as the world slowly emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Robowealth: Boosting Financial Inclusion In Thailand, Chiraphol N. Chiyachantana, David K. Ding, Pattarawan Mai Prasarnphanich, Chi Wei Chan

Asian Management Insights

Advanced fintech lowers barriers to investing.

From Tether To Terra: The Current Stablecoin Ecosystem And The Failure Of Regulators, Mary E. Burke

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

The Tether controversy and Terra crash have placed stablecoins in the regulatory spotlight. Stablecoins are often portrayed as posing systemic risks to financial markets, with some pundits labelling them “the villain of the finance world.” Global regulatory bodies, namely the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank of International Settlement (BIS), and political leaders, including the Biden Administration, have all called for stablecoin regulation. These officials allege that stablecoins’ structure, combined with their exponential growth, pose a unique risk to global markets. Before the May 2022 Terra crash, government reports superficially treated stablecoins by exclusively focusing on asset-backed coins. Post …

Exploring Financial Data Protection And Civil Liberties In An Evolved Digital Age, Amanda Lindner

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

There is no comprehensive financial privacy law that can protect consumers from a company’s collection sharing and selling of consumer data. The most recent federal financial privacy law, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GLBA”), was enacted by Congress over 20 years ago. Vast technological and financial changes have occurred since 1999, and financial privacy law is due for an upgrade.

As a result, loopholes exist where companies can share financial data without being subject to laws or regulations. Additionally, federal financial privacy related laws provide little to no recourse for consumers to self-remediate with litigation, also known as a private right of …

How Do Sustainability Stakeholders Seize Climate Risk Premia In The Private Cleantech Sector, Lingyu Li, Xianrong Zheng

Information Technology & Decision Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper explores the strategies and practices of capturing climate risk premia for venture capital (VC) fund managers and entrepreneurs in the private cleantech sector. It also examines the impact of the feed-in tariffs (FITs) policy on the management of cleantech investments. It is shown that a longer investment period, less investment capital in cleantech investment management strategies, and optimistic climate risk management practices will help investors to better capture climate risk premia. In fact, the FITs policy will give rise to VC fund managers and entrepreneurs having a positive view regarding the prospects of the cleantech sector, motivating them …

Disruptive Change Within Financial Technology: A Methodological Analysis Of Digital Transformation Challenges, Laurie Hughes, Jonathan J. M. Seddon, Yogesh K. Dwivedi

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The digital transformation of the FinTech industry has revealed a plethora of significant challenges for industry decision makers and wider stakeholder groups as organisations contend with the onset of new regulatory frameworks, legacy systems, flexible business models and alignment with corporate social responsibility practice. The reshaping of organisations and drive to greater levels of decentralisation and employee centric practice, presents a cultural shift for the sector, with implications for the success and resulting benefits of change across the industry. This study aims to develop novel insight to the ‘lived in’ impact of digital transformation within the FinTech industry from a …

A Study On The Impact Of Technological Innovation Attributes On Listing Success Rate And Post-Listing Performance, Yijun Xu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

"Key and core technology" enterprises form the backbone of great powers. China’s STAR Market (technological innovation board) is committed to implementing strategies that will lead to technological innovation-driven sustainable development and strengthen the country by building a secure and independent industrial chain that can support the development of cutting-edge technology. From the outset, the STAR Market put forward clear requirements for "key and core technology" enterprises. The technological innovation attributes of the enterprises listed on the STAR Market are the most essential core characteristics, but a question arises as to how best to evaluate their technological innovation attributes. Are these …

Three Essays On Climate Finance And Machine Learning In Financial Studies, Huan Kuang

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on climate finance and explore how to incorporate machine learning techniques into financial research. In the first chapter, we focus on climate innovation. Through a novel design to link climate risk and the U.S. firm patents related to climate change mitigation technologies (CCMTs), we find that CCMT innovations generate significant economic value. These innovations are effective in mitigating firms’ carbon risk. We also find that adoption of a new patent classification scheme has promoted more CCMT innovations in the United States. However, we find mixed evidence on firms’ carbon risk and their CCMT innovation activities. Our work …

When Will Cryptocurrency’S Winter Come To An End?, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

With the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies dropping dramatically, what is in store for the digital asset market?

Exploring The Assetisation And Financialisation Of Non-Fungible Tokens: Opportunities And Regulatory Implications, Iris H. Y. Chiu, J.G. Allen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article explores the emerging phenomenon of use cases for Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs) in novel forms of crypto-finance, a stage we call “NFT financialisation”, that can be developed from stages of consumption and commoditisation of NFTs, which are increasingly observed. Despite the emerging contests regarding property rights conferred by NFTs, the needs for commoditisation and financialisation in NFT markets would likely shape the delineation and framing of such rights in order for users to exploit the asset potential of NFTs. We argue that an institutional response is timely and beneficial for NFT financialisation. Financial regulatory governance can provide the institutions …

Cryptocurrencies: Now What?, Wei Zhou, Fathurraman

Perspectives@SMU

New use cases could lead to wider adoption, but regulation and the transition to Web3 must be handled first

Regulating The Fintech Space, Jing Yang, Patrick Thng, Zhu Juntao, Kell Jay Lim

Perspectives@SMU

China gets to grips with fintech but still frowns upon cryptocurrencies. Regulation, blockchain technology, and central bank digital currencies will be under the spotlight amidst the crypto crash

Chinese-Backed Fintech Lending Boom: How Did Indonesia Respond?, Angela Tritto, Yujia He, Victoria Amanda Junaedi

Diplomacy and International Commerce Reports

Peer-to-peer (P2P) online lending has the potential to boost innovation and financial inclusion in emerging markets, yet it can also incur investment and borrower-related risks, such as privacy breaches.

Driven by regulation control in China, Chinese investments flocked to Indonesia, causing a rapid expansion of online lending platforms.

Similar to what happened in China prior to the regulatory crackdown, the P2P lending boom in Indonesia saw a rise in unethical and illegal business practices. The government responded by creating new regulations and institutions to mitigate risks without stifling the potential for financial inclusion.

A proactive approach towards monitoring and regulating …

Is The Crypto World Having Its Own 2008 Lehman Brothers Moment?, Eric Lim

Perspectives@SMU

Cryptocurrency markets have tumbled in recent times due to the age-old story of greed, arrogance and disregard for responsibility, writes UNSW Business School’s Eric Lim

Decentralized Finance: Implications Of The So-Called Disintermediation Of Financial Services, Nydia Remolina Leon

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Decentralized Finance, known as DeFi, refers to the use of blockchain and digital assets or crypto-assets for the provision of financial services. Under this concept, services such as loans, insurance, crypto-asset exchanges, among others, are offered, are structured based on crypto-assets and through technologically decentralized applications. This chapter discusses the concept of DeFi and how it challenges the traditional market infrastructures of the financial sector, demystifying the idea of absolute decentralization, generally mentioned in the crypto-asset arena, from the perspective of decision-makers and governors of these decentralized applications. Subsequently, the chapter analyses the opportunities and challenges of DeFi for consumers, …

How The Financial Services Industry Is Utilizing Social Media To Expand Their Client Base, Kristen Stewart

Marketing Undergraduate Honors Theses

Social media is becoming an increasingly important aspect of all companies’ marketing strategies. It is almost imperative for companies to advertise through social media if they want to have a fair chance of reaching the younger generation. In fact, “the majority (97%) of Gen Z consumers say they now use social media as their top source of shopping inspiration; 65% say they use social media to find entertaining content; and 61% of them are specifically interested in watching more video content” (Kastenholz, 2021). This proves that social media can make a significant and lasting impact on a company’s success. Social …