Publications
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- Faculty Publications (96)
fintech
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- December 2022 (Revised August 2023)
- Case
Ribbit Capital and the Gauntlet Investment Opportunity
By: Shai Bernstein and Allison M. Ciechanover
Ten-year-old, Palo Alto-based Ribbit Capital is best-known for its global investments in fintech. The firm was also an early advocate of crypto and blockchain, having invested in more than two dozen startups in the space in the past decade. In the Spring of 2022,... View Details
- 2022
- Working Paper
Buy Now, Pay Later Credit: User Characteristics and Effects on Spending Patterns
By: Marco Di Maggio, Justin Katz and Emily Williams
Firms offering "buy now, pay later" (BNPL) point-of-sale installment loans with minimal underwriting and low interest have captured a growing fraction of the market for short-term unsecured consumer credit. We provide a detailed look into the US BNPL market by... View Details
- September 2022
- Article
Human Versus Machine: A Comparison of Robo-Analyst and Traditional Research Analyst Investment Recommendations
By: Braiden Coleman, Kenneth J. Merkley and Joseph Pacelli
We provide the first comprehensive analysis of the properties of investment recommendations generated by “Robo-Analysts,” which are human analyst-assisted computer programs conducting automated research analysis. Our results indicate that Robo-Analyst recommendations... View Details
- May 2022
- Case
Rawbank's Illico Cash: Can 'Fast Money' Overcome Cash Dependency in the DRC?
By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger
Thomas de Dreux-Brézé, the Head of Strategy and Project Management at Rawbank Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was perplexed as he reviewed annual adoption rates for the bank’s launch of Illico Cash 2.0. As the bank’s mobile money app, Illico Cash... View Details
Keywords: Fintech; Inflation; Deflation; Rural; Urban; Emerging Market; Mobile Technology; Finance; Money; Inflation and Deflation; Business Growth and Maturation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Demographics; Developing Countries and Economies; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Behavioral Finance; Currency; Banks and Banking; Commercial Banking; Financial Strategy; Rural Scope; Urban Scope; Innovation Strategy; Emerging Markets; Network Effects; Consumer Behavior; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Technology Adoption; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; Congo, Democratic Republic of the
- May 2022
- Case
From GOP to NFT: Anthony Scaramucci and the Launch of Flatter NFT
By: Lauren Cohen, Richard Ryffel and Grace Headinger
Anthony Scaramucci, Managing Director of SkyBridge Capital, considered whether he should officially greenlight the launch of SkyBridge’s own NFT platform — Flatter NFT. He had led the investment firm to push first into Bitcoin and then Ethereum to make SkyBridge a... View Details
Keywords: Business Startup; Fintech; Technology; Cryptocurrency; Web3; Business Startups; Volatility; Decision Making; Entertainment; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Strategic Planning; Adoption; Competitive Advantage; Technology Adoption; Finance; Currency; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; New York (city, NY)
- April 2022
- Supplement
Mastercard Labs (B)
When Ajaypal (Ajay) Banga became the CEO of Mastercard in 2010, digital technologies were on the rise, and innovation needed to become a strategic imperative at the company. Banga tasked Garry Lyons, who had joined Mastercard through the 2009 acquisition of Orbiscom,... View Details
Keywords: Organizational Behavior; Culture; Transformation; Organizational Culture; Culture Change; Organizational Adaptation; Organizational Effectiveness; Alignment; Leadership; Leadership Development; Innovation; Innovation Ecosystems; Diversity; Collaboration; Co-creation; Learning Organizations; Empowerment; Ecosystem; Agility; Prototype; Experiment; Partnerships; Operating Model; Risk Management; Digital Transformation; Metrics; Payments; Financial Industry; Financial Inclusion; Ambidexterity; Corporate Innovation; Innovation Lab; Accelerator; Start-up; Fintech
- March 2022 (Revised May 2022)
- Case
Reclaiming the Land of Purple: Purpl’s Mission to Unlock Finance in Lebanon
By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger
Karl Naim, Co-Founder and CEO of Purpl, embarked on a venture to lower remittance costs for his native Lebanon. Since October 2019, the Lebanese economy had entered a free fall as its banking sector collapsed and large swathes of its population were plunged into... View Details
Keywords: Business Startup; Fintech; Inflation; Deflation; Cross-border Frictions; Remittances; Business Startups; Diasporas; Financial Crisis; Money; Entrepreneurship; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Poverty; Financial Institutions; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; Lebanon
- March 2022 (Revised April 2022)
- Case
MTN: Unlocking Value While Driving Socioeconomic Progress
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Dilyana Karadzhova Botha
On March 10, 2021, Ralph Mupita the new CEO of MTN Group, Africa's largest telecommunications company, presented the group’s 2020 annual results and unveiled a new strategy to “drive growth and unlock value.” Despite MTN’s leadership in most of its markets, the... View Details
- March 2022
- Case
In Data We Trust: Be Mobile Africa and Furthering Financial Inclusion Across the African Continent
By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Pierre Marchesseault
To Cédric Jeannot, leveraging technology to promote financial inclusion was personal. After no established financial institution would accept his technology platform to lower transaction costs for free, Jeannot launched FinTech company Be Mobile Africa in May 2020.... View Details
Keywords: Finance; Fintech; Emerging Market; Fundraising; Financial Inclusion; Strategy; Expansion; Management; Entrepreneurship; Personal Finance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; Africa; Togo; Nigeria; Ghana
- 2023
- Working Paper
Fintech to the (Worker) Rescue: Access to Earned Wages, Financial Health and Employee Turnover
By: Jose Murillo, Boris Vallée and Dolly Yu
Using novel data from a Mexican FinTech firm, we study the usage by workers of earned wages access, an innovative financial service offered by firms to their employees as a benefit. We find usage to be significant and concentrated towards the end of the pay cycle. We... View Details
Keywords: Fintech; Present Bias; Earned Wage Access; Wages; Employees; Retention; Well-being; Mexico
- February 2022 (Revised November 2022)
- Case
Fondeadora
By: Álvaro Rodríguez Arregui and Mitchell Weiss
Norman Müller and René Serrano, cofounders of Fondeadora, a Mexican “neobank,” had lined up a $12.5 million in Series A funding round in 2020 only to run into a major obstacle: The lead investor was Gradient Ventures, a venture firm launched by Alphabet, Inc., and... View Details
- February 2022
- Case
NFX Capital and Moov Technologies
By: Scott Duke Kominers and Nicole Tempest Keller
In July 2019, James Currier, a general partner at San Francisco-based NFX Ventures, was considering a seed stage investment of $1.5 million in Moov Technologies, a B2B marketplace for used industrial equipment. NFX was a venture capital firm focused on seed-stage... View Details
- December 2021
- Case
The Instant Payment Mandate: The Central Bank of Brazil and Pix
By: Lauren Cohen and Spencer C. N. Hagist
João M. P. De Mello and his team at the Central Bank of Brazil are preparing a move that would seek to tilt the scales in favor of financial inclusion for the entire country. The innovation at hand is the unprecedented nation-wide instant payment scheme: Pix. The fruit... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
Friends and Family Money: P2P Transfers and Financially Fragile Consumers
By: Tetyana Balyuk and Emily Williams
We assess the impact that real time money transfer technology has on consumer outcomes, particularly during periods of financial fragility. We do this by developing a new data set that documents use of Zelle—the most widely used P2P money transfer technology in the... View Details
- 2021
- Chapter
Building Small Business Utopia: How Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Can Increase Small Business Success
By: Karen G. Mills and Annie Dang
Small business lending has remained unchanged for decades, laden with frictions and barriers that prevent many small businesses from accessing the capital they need to succeed. Financial technology, or “fintech,” promises to change this trajectory. In 2010, new fintech... View Details
- September 2021 (Revised December 2021)
- Case
STARZPLAY: Shooting for the Stars
By: Elie Ofek, Marco Bertini and Alpana Thapar
In mid-2021, Maaz Sheikh, cofounder and CEO of STARZPLAY, a Dubai-based subscription video on demand (SVOD) provider that catered to the Middle East and North Africa region, was wrestling with how to find the right balance between continued subscriber growth and... View Details
Keywords: Pricing; Growth; Profitability; Subscription Business; Business Model Innovation; Fintech; Subscription; Performance Measurement; Promotions; International Marketing; Streaming; Competition; Marketing; Price; Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Performance; Measurement and Metrics; Business Model; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Middle East; North Africa
- July 2021 (Revised February 2024)
- Teaching Note
Wirecard: The Downfall of a German Fintech Star
By: Jonas Heese and Charles C.Y. Wang
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 121-058. View Details
- July 2021 (Revised August 2023)
- Supplement
Wirecard: The Downfall of a German Fintech Star Instructor Spreadsheet Supplement
By: Jonas Heese and Charles CY Wang
- July 2021 (Revised August 2023)
- Supplement
Wirecard: The Downfall of a German Fintech Star Student Spreadsheet Supplement
By: Jonas Heese and Charles CY Wang