CALL FOR PAPERS FOR CONFERENCE, “Financial Intermediation in the Third Millennium: Perils and Pearls of Technology"

MOTIVATION
The banking industry has seen a major shift in the third millennium as new fintech companies have emerged, offering innovative technologies and services that are changing how banks do business. Moreover, developments like BigTech and BigData are raising the possibility that many of the traditional functions of banks may be usurped by non-depositories like Amazon, Google, Apple, and others. These new entrants could offer various banking services, from payments and wealth management to data analytics and investment banking. They could also leverage their capabilities in other areas to provide versions of these services that may improve banks' offerings. In particular, these new players may help fill gaps in the provision of financial services that banks still need to fill. Still, the innovations and other actions of non-traditional players may cause banks to transform their strategies to adapt to the changing landscape of financial services, and this raises questions about how regulators will need to think about emerging risks to regulated banks and how to cope with them. In this new digital economy, what will the new challenges and opportunities be for both banks and their regulators, and what will these implications be for innovation in financial services?

The conference is organized jointly by the Olin Business School WFA Center for Finance and Accounting Research, the Essex Business School FinteX (Financial Technology Centre EsseX) centre, and the Financial Intermediation of European Studies (Finest).

TOPICS
Both theoretical and empirical papers are encouraged in areas which include (but are not limited) to:
o New technology-based financial products.
o New paradigms of competition in financial intermediation. Competition from Decentralized Finance, Fintech companies, and BigData and BigTech companies.
o Connections between banks and shadow banks.
o Interaction between monetary policy, financial conditions, and build-up of fragilities in financial markets in the new digital economy.
o Crypto assets, crypto currencies, and digital currencies.
o Blockchain technologies and smart contracts.
o Fintech as an alternative to financing (e.g., P2P lending, crowdfunding, initial coin offerings, and machine-based services).
o Fintech and democratization of investments
o Geopolitical risks and implications for market stability.
o New challenges for regulation and supervision.
o Big data, nowcasting, and text analysis in finance.
o Digital finance, banks, and non-banks in the interface between banking and financing innovations in medicine/healthcare, societal management of an aging population, and other non-traditional areas.

Each paper will be assigned to a discussant.

SUBMISSIONS
Please email your submission by November 30, 2024, to:
Kristen Jones, kristen.jones@wustl.edu

IMPORTANT DATES:
o Submissions Deadline: November 30, 2024
o Notification of Acceptance: January 31, 2025
o Conference Program Disclosure: February 15, 2025

PROGRAM COMMITTEE
o Franklin Allen, Imperial College, London, U.K.
o Mark Flannery, University of Florida, U.S.
o Luc Leuven, European Central Bank, Germany
o Elena Loutskina, University of Virginia, U.S.
o Steven Ongena, University of Zurich, Switzerland
o Loriana Pelizzon, Goethe University, Germany
o Raghu Rau, University of Cambridge, U.K.
o Richard Thakor, University of Minnesota, U.S.
o Joel Shapiro, University of Oxford, U.K.
o Merih Sevilir, ESMT-Berlin and IWH
o Phil Strahan. Boston College, U.S.
o Greg Udell, Indiana University, U.S.

ORGANIZERS
o Franco Fiordelisi, University of Essex, U.K
o Paolo Fulghieri, University of North Carolina, U.S
o Anjan Thakor, Washington University in St. Louis, U.S.