On June 22, ‘PBCSF Award for The Best Paper in Fintech’ Announced at WFA Annual Meeting. The award is supported and established by XIN Real Estate Fintech Research Center at Tsinghua University Institute for Fintech Research. It is awarded to Dr. Sean Higgins at Northwestern University for his work ‘Financial Technology Adoption’.

Between 2009 and 2012, the Mexican government disbursed about one million debit cards to existing beneficiaries of its conditional cash transfer program, which acts as exogenous shock. In his article, Dr. Sean Higgins studied and proved how the both sides of the market respond to the adoption of fintech. Compared to not-yet-treated localities, the number of POS terminals in treated localities had increased by 18% in 2 years. The author found the acceptance and adoption of POS terminal by mid and small retailers further promotes the use of debit card. The richest quintile of consumers reduces their consumption at supermarkets by 13% and increase their consumption at corner stores by 15% in response to the debit card shock and subsequent POS adoption by corner stores. The thesis well answered how fintech changes the business behaviour and habit of consumers and manufactures, which provide an important evidence to study how the development of the fintech impact real life, and provide help to the regulation making of fintech.

On behalf of the School, Zhang Xiaoyan, associate dean and Xinyuan professor of finance of Tsinghua PBCSF, director of Xinyuan Fintech Research Center of Tsinghua University National Institute of Financial Research, attended the conference.

 

WFA annual meeting is one of the most influential financial academic conference in the world. The purpose of the award is to encourage outstanding scholars around the globe in the field of fintech research and promote academic exchanges, research development and innovation. This is the first time where University from mainland China establish award at U.S. academic conference.