The First Annual Toronto FinTech Conference took place on October 20-21, 2017, and concluded with great success. The event attracted a large volume of high quality academic submissions across the fields of strategy, entrepreneurship, finance, economics, and organization theory. Thirty-four papers were presented and discussed in nine themed tracks. Academic participants attended from all over the world, representing 35 universities.
Papers shortlisted for the Best Paper Award were presented by the attending author. The winners are as follows:
Winner of the Best Paper Award: "What has driven the expansion of the peer-to-peer lending?" by Olena Havrylchyk, Carlotta Mariotto, Talal Rahim & Marianne Verdier (presented by Marianne Verdier from Université Panthéon Assas, France)
And the two runner-ups:
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"Audience engagement and the legitimization of technological discontinuities in regulated markets: Evidence from adoption of FinTech in Europe" by Tatjana Schneidmüller, Mariano L.M. Heyden & Henk W. Volberda (presented by Tatjana Schneidmüller from Erasmus University, the Netherlands)
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"Smart Settlement" by Mariana Khapko & Marius Zoican (presented by Mariana Khapko from University of Toronto, Canada)
Additionally, three PhD stipend awards were also granted to:
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Qian Li (Li, Jarzabkowski & Furnari) from Cass Business School, City University of London, UK
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Dorthe Mejlhede from Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
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Simon Trimborn from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
Above: Marianne Verdier, Université Panthéon Assas, France, presents "What has driven the expansion of the peer-to-peer lending?", winner of the Best Paper Award.
Participants learned about perspectives from cutting-edge academic research presented by Dr. Christian Catalini (MIT Sloan) and Dr. Hanna Halaburda (NYU Stern/Bank of Canada) in the FinTech space. We also obtained insights from Director of FinTech Partnership at Scotiabank, Joseph Villamizar, about the Bank’s proactive involvement in FinTech, and from industry expert, Ryan Zurrer (Principal & Venture Partner of Polychain Capital) about the central role of governance in adopting blockchain implementations.
Above: Joseph Villamizar, Director FinTech Partnerships, Scotiabank, speaks at the Toronto FinTech Conference.
We are pleased to have effectively provided the platform for intellectual exchanges and for stimulating research ideas around the FinTech phenomenon in academia. The second annual Toronto FinTech Conference will take place in October or November 2018 (dates TBA). We look forward to continuing the conversation and growing deepened interests in the FinTech academic community.