FinTech: Consumer Financial Services

Technological innovation has been transforming the financial services industry, and further disruption is almost a certainty. Financial Technology (“FinTech”) start-ups are tackling many realms of consumer financial services, including mobile payments, foreign exchange, marketplace (peer-to-peer) lending, saving and investing, financial advice (robo-advisers), and property-casualty, health and life insurance. The goal of this course is to understand the economic and technological forces driving this change and to learn how to harness them in a responsible way. The curriculum is organized by product areas within consumer financial services, and for each area we’ll cover the underlying economics, the technology, the public policy issues, the competition, and the potential for collaboration between start-ups and the incumbents. Note that we will not cover in depth the topics of cryptocurrencies and blockchain - if these are your primary interests, there are other courses offered focusing specifically on these topics. A key component of the course is a collaborative team student project: each team will propose and develop a prototype for a new fintech venture. At the end of the semester each team will present its project to the class, and a guest from an NYC venture capital firm will join us and provide feedback.