FIN383: Financial Technology (fintech) Companies have Attracted Great Interest and Funding- Financial Technologies and Innovations Assignment, SUSS, Singapore

SECTION A

You are required to submit the following items for this ECA:

• A report, answering Questions 1 – 3 of Section A
• A Jupyter Notebook (.ipynb) for Question 4 of Section A. All documentation/comments/assumptions of Question 4 must be made within the .ipynb file using either Markdown or inline comments.
• A video for Section B
• A set of PowerPoint slides in PDF format for Section C

Financial technology (fintech) companies have attracted great interest and funding from investors since 2008. It was reported that in 2018, fintech companies were the source of about 1,300 deals worth over $15 billion in North America and Europe. Globally, over the same period, KPMG estimated that ≥ $52 billion in investment was poured into fintech initiatives. In Singapore alone, fintech investment reached S$1 billion in the first 9 months in 2019.

With the herald of these fintech companies, there has been much disruption in the provision of financial services. The provision of financial services by fintech companies is (mostly) welcomed by consumers and carefully championed by regulators. Incumbent banks are gearing themselves to the competition coming from fintech companies.

Question 1

With the advent of fintech companies in the provision of financial services, discuss the advantages and disadvantages brought forth by these alternative providers of financial services.

Make good use of examples, statistics and events to augment your discussion.

Question 2

Bill Gates has famously said that “We need banking, but not banks.”

Jamie Dimon, CEO and chairman of J.P. Morgan has warned “Silicon Valley is coming” in his 2014 annual letter to shareholders.

Discuss the changes in the banking landscape, focusing on

• New providers of banking services – who they are and their business models
• Incumbent banks coping and adapting to the changes brought forth from new
  competition.

Conclude your discussion by comparing and demonstrating the relative strengths and weaknesses of the new providers and incumbents in the delivery of banking services.

Make good use of examples, statistics and events to augment your discussion.

Question 3

With the entrant of new financial service providers, the role of regulators has evolved to adapt to changes in the financial landscape.

Suggest and discuss some of the steps that regulators are doing to ensure the continued stability of the financial system with the entrant of fintech companies.

Make good use of examples, statistics and events to augment your discussion.

Question 4

You are the COO of a Robo-advisory company, and you are to report the performance of your clients’ portfolio regularly in the format presented in Table 1.

Table 1: Performance of portfolio with ID = 35 reported on the 31-Dec-2015, printed to 1 decimal point

Prepare a Python script that creates and deliver information displayed in the format given in Table 1.

The first three columns report the names, allocation and prices of the stocks in the portfolio on Report Date. The Units column reports the total units of the stocks held in the portfolio on the Report Date and the Invt ($) column prints the total amount of money used to acquire the respective stocks. The Mkt Value ($) column reports the market value of the stocks on Report Date while the Return (%) column prints the return of the stock in the portfolio.

The overall portfolio return is determined by

Appendices A and B describe the format of the data structures used by the Robo-advisor

Given the following inputs to your Python script in Figure 1, and together with your Python script, generate the performance of portfolios with ID = 30 and 4502 on 31-Dec-2015 in the format given in Table 1.

Hence, report the ID and return of the portfolio that has the highest return on the 31-Dec-2015.

SECTION B

Prepare a video presentation of at least 3 minutes, but not exceeding 6 minutes that can be used to help your prospective investors understand the advantages and disadvantages brought forth by these alternative providers of financial services.

There are two methods for ECA video assignment submission; either Record Media or Upload Media. For Upload Media, please note that your file size should be no more than 500MB and the format is in .mp4.

SECTION C

Prepare a set of PowerPoint presentation upon which the video presentation is based. Please note that the PowerPoint must be converted to PDF before submission to Canvas.