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New Tech V. New Deal: Fintech As A Systemic Phenomenon, Saule T. Omarova

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Fintech is the hottest topic in finance today. Recent advances in cryptography, data analytics, and machine learning are visibly "disrupting" traditional methods of delivering financial services and conducting financial transactions. Less visibly, fintech is also changing the way we think about finance: it is gradually recasting our collective understanding of the financial system in normatively neutral terms of applied information science. By making financial transactions easier, faster, and cheaper, fintech seems to promise a micro-level "win-win" solution to the financial system's many ills.

This Article challenges such narratives and presents an alternative account of fintech as a systemic, macro-level phenomenon. …