Chau Nguyen - Conference poster.pdf

Fintech has been increasingly popular recently for its potential to transform the global finance industry and economy. Since COVID-19 spreads around the world, whereas several reports have showed positive influences of the pandemic within fintech’s development, there are insufficient scientific studies that robustly assess the outbreak’s real impact to the sector.

This research aims to address this gap by employing a mixed method approach, which involves multiple phases: In the first phase, media content analysis will be utilised to investigate the change in fintech’s trends and communication before and after the pandemic. How fintech would have performed without the pandemic will be weighed using the counterfactual analysis on one of fintech’s constituents: cryptocurrencies in the second phase. Case studies on SMEs will be conducted at the final phase to study if there are any differences in attitudes and intentions to adopt fintech because of the COVID-19.

Research findings will provide insights of user’s response in using fintech in pandemic context. They will also act as reference for policy makers to navigate their agenda for pandemic relief efforts. Furthermore, SMEs can learn from their counterparts and gain a better understanding of fintech market in terms of adopting and implementing the technology.