FinTech – Between Regulatory Uncertainty and Market Fragmentation. What Are the Prospects for the Technological Single Market of Financial Services?

Abstract

The sector of financial services is in the middle of a unique upheaval, known as FinTech, which derives from the application of emerging technologies in finance. FinTech is a large and heterogeneous ecosystem, variously articulated, which is boosting the digital transformation of the financial sector through a process of change and challenge for all stakeholders. Faced with benefits and risks, so many different regulatory approaches have been adopted by the Member States negatively affected the main purpose of FinTech, which is the creation of a technological single market of financial services. Different obstacles hinder the achievement of this purpose, including the regulatory gap and legislative uncertainty, which fragment the market and encourage regulatory arbitrage. The scheme of the regulatory sandbox could bring down the barriers, but only if it moves from a national market to a single European one.