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Fintech Ventures

Objectives

High margins, underserved customers, and accumulated inefficiencies have made the financial services industry a perfect target for entrepreneurs and innovators. Dozens of digital disruptors are giving consumers and companies cheaper, better, or entirely new ways to manage their financial lives. This is an advanced entrepreneurship class that is sector focused to go beyond general entrepreneurship concepts and do a deeper dive on the special challenges in the Financial Services industry and how to best address them. Students will learn through a mix of lectures, guest speakers and exercises while building their own team projects.

General characterization

Code

2273

Credits

3.5

Responsible teacher

Afonso Eça

Hours

Weekly - Available soon

Total - Available soon

Teaching language

English

Prerequisites

Available soon

Bibliography

Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup (Wiley, 1st Edition), William Aulet, ISBN 1118692284;

The Future of Finance. Part 1, 2 and 3, Goldman Sachs Equity Research;

The Future of Financial Services, World Economic Forum;

The Future of Financial Infrastructure, World Economic Forum;

Next Generation Finance: Adapting the financial services industry to changes in technology, regulation and consumer behavior, Paul D. Stallard, Robert Lempk;

Breaking Banks – The Innovators, Rogues and Strategists, Brett King;

The 50 Best Fintech Innovator Report, KPMG, AWI Limited;

The Fintech 2.0 paper, Santander Innoventures;

The Lean Startup, Eric Rie;

The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win, Steve Blank;

The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money are challenging the Global Economic Order, Paul Vigna, Michael Casey;

A Blueprint for Digital Identity, World Economic Forum.

Teaching method

•    Lectures: will concentrate on case study discussions about fintech start-ups
•    Assigned readings: articles and book chapters
•    Group assignments: Two assignments
•    Final exam: will cover lectures, readings assigned in the textbook, additional readings, and materials distributed during class time. The exams will be open book.

Evaluation method

The final grade will be a weighted average of the grades in the assignments:

•    Group assignments  (2 x 25%)    50%
•    Exam    50%

Subject matter

  • Class 1 - FinTech Overview;

  • Class 2 – Regulatory and legal frameworks;

  • Class 3 – Payments 1.0;

  • Class 4 – Payments 2.0;

  • Class 5 – Lending Marketplaces I;

  • Class 6 – Other Marketplaces II;

  • Class 7 – Artificial intelligence in Finance;

  • Class 8 – Blockchain basics;

  • Class 9 – Blockchain and cryptocurrencies;

  • Class 10 – Digital Identity;

  • Class 11 – VC and M&A trends in the Fintech space;

  • Class 12 – RegTech and InsurTech.