ABSTRACT
The development of Fintech relies on financial infrastructure. There are three types of financial infrastructure. The first type is information infrastructure, including information collection and recording, data analysis methods, and computing capabilities. Credit reference is an essential part of information infrastructure. The second type is payment and market infrastructure, which acts as the “pipeline” of the financial system. Hidden from the public, it affects how money circulates, how financial resources are allocated, how financial risks transfer, and how financial policies are transmitted. The third type is the regulatory infrastructure, including traditional financial regulation (core objective of which is to promote financial stability and protect financial consumers), competition policy (especially for Fintech businesses of Big Tech companies), and data privacy regulation. No matter how different Fintech’s business models, applications, processes, and products are, they all essentially rely on these infrastructures to allocate economic resources across time and space.
