Fintech

Individual Essay

The assignment is an individual essay. It is of an ‘exploratory’ nature, thus you are not required to download specific datasets. The length of the essay is 2,000 words (+/- 10%) excluding cover page, references, and appendices.

Required:

Conduct a case study on how financial technology (fintech) has disrupted (or has not) traditional finance and/or financial services and markets. Your case study needs to include the following elements:

Do you think fintech (in general) has or has not disrupted traditional finance and/or financial services? Support your arguments with evidence. [100 words]

Choose a subset of fintech areas (e.g. Blockchain, cryptocurrencies, predictive analytics, big data, high-frequency trading, P2P, smart contracts, AI and Machine Learning, financial regulation (finreg), etc.) and discuss within this subset area how it enhances (or not) financial services or markets that exist today. How were the markets differ prior to the integration of fintech? Support your arguments by quantitative analysis (using sources) and evidence. Again, you are not required to download specific datasets. [1,000 words]

Assume that you are a financial analyst who investigate potential investment opportunities in stock markets today. Given the backdrop of COVID-19 and Brexit (if UK stocks are chosen), what would be your investment recommendation to your clients who are willing to make investments in 2022? Provide maximum two companies that you think are good potential targets. [400 words]

Identify potential factors that may affect your recommendation. [500 words]

This essay should be submitted via Turnitin via the module blackboard site.