Best paper runner-up award for Tatjana Schneidmüller at Toronto FinTech Conference

The paper studies how audience engagement - the attention and opinion - of peer bankers, financial services field experts, the general public, and regulators impacts the strategies that established banks employ to tackle the unprecedented wave of innovation in financial services – FinTech.

Acceptable in society
“Basically, the more social groups attend to and positively speak of FinTech, the more it becomes legitimised, hence acceptable within society,” says Schneidmüller, adding this is crucial for banks, which operate in a tightly regulated environment and have to comply with rules and regulations rather than simply be perceived acceptable by the society.

The Annual Toronto FinTech Conference was held in Toronto, Canada on 20-21 October, and aimed to connect scholars in the fields of strategy, entrepreneurship, innovation, organisation theory, finance, and economics to discuss their research on the rise, diffusion, and disruptive potential of financial technologies (FinTech).

FinTech research projects
In addition to the regular paper sessions, the paper’s findings were also presented to all conference participants during a short keynote presentation. “To be even considered for best paper as a second-year PhD candidate, among such big names as Michael King and J.P. Vergne, is a huge honour,” said Schneidmüller. “It’s a confirmation for me that my work matters and is worth pursuing.”

Schneidmüller is working on two other FinTech projects. “I’m fascinated with FinTech. In my theoretical paper, I seek to explain the inter- and intra-audience dynamics that lead to the acceptance or rejection of FinTech. And my third project looks into how regulatory legitimacy – compliance with established rules and regulations – of established banks influences, and potentially inhibits, them to adopt FinTech.”