A JVI/IMF Course on Fintech and Financial Stability

The financial services landscape is rapidly evolving due to technological advances. New technologies such as distributed ledgers have enabled the creation and use of crypto assets, attracting worldwide interest. Big data and artificial intelligence have opened new ways of financial service delivery. The growth of application programming interfaces and cloud computing has created new business models such as banking-as-a-service. The increasingly active role of Big Tech firms in payment services, particularly pronounced in some emerging markets in Asia, is another example of recent technology-enabled innovation in financial services (fintech). A one-week course in October, led by the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department, provided a comprehensive overview of these and other major global fintech developments that supervisors and regulators need to be aware of. It also discussed the implications of fintech developments on financial stability risks as well as on prudential and conduct regulation.

The course covered the impact of fintech on regulated financial markets, as well as policy and regulatory responses such as the Bali Fintech Agenda or the recent development of standards and recommendations in crypto markets. The course also covered regional fintech developments in the countries of CESEE, the Caucasus, Central Asia and Türkiye. Peer exchanges within the region were facilitated by presentations that course participants gave with a focus on fintech and regulatory initiatives in their respective countries. Based on the participant feedback, a key strength of the course was the deep expertise and professional experience of the IMF lecturers on the course topic. Among others, this also enabled a critical assessment of popular trends, such as on the usefulness of regulatory sandboxes and innovation hubs that many countries have launched in recent years.

The JVI will offer a similar course by the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department (“Selected Issues in the Regulation of Fintech”) in 2024, in addition to a separate new course on “Fintech Market Development and Policy Implications” by the IMF Institute on Capacity Development.

Maximilian Fandl, Senior Economist, JVI