Personalized Investment/Finance Platforms
This theme involves the development of investment/finance platforms that use data provisioning, decision support systems, and customization to provide personalized investment or finance options gratification to help users manage their finances and/or track their spending more effectively.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) What are the key features that users look for in personal investment/finance management apps, and how can developers ensure that their apps meet these needs?
b) What are the challenges and risks of using gamification in personal investment/finance, and how can they be mitigated?
Blockchain Technology and its Impact on Financial Services
This theme explores the potential impact of Blockchain Technology and DLTs on financial services, including its ability to improve security, increase efficiency, and reduce costs.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) How can blockchain technology be used to reduce fraud and increase transparency in financial transactions?
b) What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of using blockchain technology in financial services?
Virtual Reality Banking
This theme involves the use of virtual and augmented reality technology in banking, using virtual/augmented reality, asset management, and insights to create a more immersive and interactive user experience.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) How can we effectively integrate virtual and augmented reality technology into banking to enhance the user experience?
b) What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of using virtual and augmented reality technology in banking?
AI-powered Financial Planning and Investment
This theme focuses on the use of artificial intelligence in financial planning and investment tools, using user identification, decision support systems, and collaboration to provide more accurate and personalized financial planning or investment advice.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) What are the ethical considerations that need to be taken into account when developing AI-powered investment tools?
b) How can we ensure that AI-powered financial planning tools provide unbiased and accurate financial advice for a diverse range of users?
Digital Banking Platforms
This theme involves the development and consolidation of digital banking platforms such as brokerage services that use information aggregation, platform, and transparency to provide users with access to a wide range of investment options.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) What are the key challenges and opportunities facing digital banking/brokerage platforms as they compete with traditional firms?
b) How can consolidated digital banking platforms be designed to meet the diverse needs of users across different regions and cultures?
FinTech and ESGTech
This theme involves the development of FinTech solutions that promote sustainable finance and address environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues and financial inclusion, using credit/lending, marketplace, and intermediation to provide underserved communities with access to financial services.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) How can FinTech solutions be designed to address the unique financial needs and challenges facing underserved communities, such as low-income individuals and small businesses?
b) What are the potential social and economic benefits of expanding access to FinTech solutions to serve ESG objectives?
UX Design in FinTech: Enhancing User Experience
This theme explores the role of user experience (UX) design in FinTech products and services, and how it can be used to improve customer satisfaction, trust, and loyalty.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) What are the key UX design principles that are most important for FinTech products and services, and how can they be effectively applied in practice?
b) How can FinTech become invisible, that is just be running in the background and no longer absorb users’ time and attention?
FinTech and the Regulatory Environment
This theme investigates the benefits and limitations of regulatory settings when it comes to FinTech. Certain governmental approaches such as sandboxes or crypto-friendly regulations affect the entry hurdles for novel FinTech companies and therefore deserve further investigation.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) How do regulatory sandboxes and nurseries support innovation in the FinTech industry?
b) What are the limitations of crypto regulations in mitigating risks associated with FinTech innovation?
InsurTech: Technology-enabled Insurance
This theme focuses on the role that new technologies play in the insurance sector. The Internet of Things (IoT) allows insurers to collect more data on their policyholders, DLTs provide enhanced opportunities for documentation, but also for transferring and thus trading risks, and big data allows for better risk appraisal.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) What are the privacy and security implications of IoT-enabled insurance?
b) How can DLTs be used to transfer risks and improve protection?
Metaverse Finance
This theme explores the Metaverse as a potential technology to enhance the traditional banking/financial system as well as the world of crypto and digital assets.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) How can metaverse technology be utilized to create a new banking experience for consumers?
b) How can metaverse technology and cryptocurrency be combined to create new economic models that are decentralized and secure?
Central Bank Digital Currencies and their Future Role
This theme focuses on the emergence of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) and their potential impact on consumers, the financial industry and the global economy, including their potential to disrupt traditional financial systems and posing privacy concerns?
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) Which new business models may emerge under a CBDC system?
b) What challenges and risks are associated with the use of digital currencies for the consumer and society?
DeFi and the Future of Finance
This research theme investigates the effects of DeFi on financial institutions, including issues related to yield generation, compliance, consumer protection, market risk management, liquidity risk, but also reducing economic inequality, and empowering the consumer.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) Which new business model may arise from DeFi?
b) How can the DeFi paradigm be used to promote financial inclusion and equality?
FinTech and Governance
This research theme analyses the role of governance in FinTech. New forms of government such as DAOs affect financial systems, including issues related to decision-making, accountability, and transparency.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) How can DAOs be used to improve the governance of decentralized systems, such as blockchain networks?
b) What are the challenges and risks of implementing new governance systems, and how can they be mitigated?
Open Banking and Innovation in FinTech
This theme examines the role of open banking and innovation in shaping the future of FinTech, including issues related to creativity, technological advancements, regulatory frameworks, and user adoption.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) How can open banking be used to promote financial innovation and improve the customer experience?
b) What are the implications of emerging technologies, such as AI, blockchain, and the Internet of Things, for the future of Fintech, and how can they be leveraged to create new value propositions?
Fintech Education and Teaching
This theme explores the challenges and opportunities of education in finance from an individual level to teaching FinTech at universities and other educational institutions.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) How can FinTech be used to promote financial education and improve financial literacy among consumers?
b) What are the most effective teaching methods for FinTech courses, and how can they be adapted to meet the needs of different student populations?
Trust in FinTech: Challenges and Strategies
This theme explores the need for trust along with the challenges and strategies for building trust in FinTech products and services, as well as the potential impact on customer acquisition, retention, and loyalty.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) What are the key factors that influence trust in FinTech, and how can FinTech companies proactively manage these factors to build and maintain trust with their customers?
b) Is trust still required in a technological setting that promotes trustlessness?
Bridging Legacy Systems with Emerging Technologies in FinTech
This theme explores the challenges and strategies for integrating legacy systems with emerging technologies in FinTech, such as DLT, AI, Big Data and the Metaverse, as well as the potential benefits and risks of doing so.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) What are the key challenges and technical considerations involved in integrating legacy systems with emerging technologies and how can banks effectively manage these challenges?
b) What are the potential benefits and risks of integrating legacy systems with emerging technologies and how can FinTech companies effectively balance these factors to maximize their impact?
FinTech and Investment Funding
This theme explores FinTech ventures from the perspective of funders and the emerging investment sentiments that exist at different levels of funding schemes and mechanisms.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) What are the emerging narratives around investment ethos and value logic behind FinTech business models?
b) What has been the impact of COVID-19 and the global recession on FinTech funding and how can FinTech ventures better prepare to secure proper runway and funding opportunities?
FinTech and Organizational Culture
This theme explores the organizational dynamics and cultural elements of FinTech ventures aiming at unpacking specificities, peculiarities and phenomenological aspects in relation to the organizational architectural designs.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) How to set up an organizational culture within a fast-paced FinTech environment?
b) What is the role of organizational culture in relation to FinTech business model innovation developments?
FinTech Innovation and Boards
This theme explores FinTech innovation from the side of board directors and board of advisors, the level of understanding and preparedness, the skills and the key questions board directors and advisors need to be asking.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) How to talk to incumbent institutions board directors and advisors about FinTech innovation? What are the main questions seeking answers?
b) What is the profile, skills, competences and behavioral traits required so as to become a member of the board of directors and advisors within the FinTech venture?
FinTech, Financial Services and Exponential Technologies
This themes takes a deep dive into exponential technologies such as 6G, digital humans (avatars), human-centered AI, self-supervised learning, hyperscale edge-computing, quantum computing, among others and their role into the future shaping of financial services and FinTech innovation.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) Which future technologies will be the critical enablers shaping the future of financial services and FinTech innovation?
b) How can incumbents and FinTechs better prepare for future use cases and transformational changes led by exponential technologies?
Past, Present and Future of FinTech
This theme delves into the historical development of FinTech, including the key milestones, technological innovations, and social and economic factors that have shaped the field.
Potential research questions, but not limited to include:
a) What are the key historical developments that have led to the emergence and growth of FinTech, and how have these developments impacted the financial services industry and society as a whole?
b) How has FinTech evolved over time, and what does the future hold in store?
