Fintech promises to spur financial inclusion and close the gender gap in access to financial services. Using novel survey data for 28 countries, this paper finds a large and ubiquitous ‘fintech gender gap’: while 29% of men use fintech products, only 21% of women do. Country characteristics...

This paper studies how the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), a comprehensive privacy law that grants users control over their data, affects fintech lending. To develop hypotheses we build a parsimonious screening model. Consumers apply for loans with banks and a fintech that has a superior...

We consider the drivers and implications of the growth of "BigTech" in finance - ie the financial services offerings of technology companies with established presence in the market for digital services. BigTech firms often start with payments. Thereafter, some expand into the provision of...

The business model of big techs rests on enabling direct interactions among a large number of users on digital platforms, such as in e-commerce, search and social media. An essential by-product is their large stock of user data, which they use to offer a wide range of services and exploit...

We study an economy in which large technology companies, Big Techs (BTs), provide credit to firms operating on their platforms. We focus on two advantages that BTs have with respect to banks: better information on their clients and better enforcement of credit repayment since BTs can exclude a...

Public payment infrastructures build on the central bank’s foundational role in the monetary system by promoting competition and interoperability between payment platforms. They can reduce costs for users and promote financial inclusion. Brazil’s recent experience with the Pix retail instant...

Prices for cryptocurrencies have undergone multiple boom-bust cycles, together with ongoing entry by retail investors. To investigate the drivers of crypto adoption, we assemble a novel database (made available with this paper) on retail use of crypto exchange apps at daily frequency for 95...

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of macroprudential policies in five Asia-Pacific countries (Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Thailand). We use supervisory bank-level data and apply a common empirical strategy. We find that macroprudential policies are effective in...

Prices for cryptocurrencies have undergone multiple boom-bust cycles, together with ongoing entry by retail investors. To investigate the drivers of crypto adoption, we assemble a novel database (made available with this paper) on retail use of crypto exchange apps at daily frequency for 95...

Prices for cryptocurrencies have undergone multiple boom-bust cycles, together with ongoing entry by retail investors. To investigate the drivers of crypto adoption, we assemble a novel database (made available with this paper) on retail use of crypto exchange apps at daily frequency for 95...