IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdi/opques/qef_862_24.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Fintech ecosystem in Italy: an analysis based on the financial statements of a sample of firms

Author

Listed:
  • Serena Palazzo

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Gabriele Sene

    (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

In recent years, the Fintech sector has recorded a significant expansion globally, benefiting from technological and regulatory innovations and from particularly favorable macroeconomic conditions. This paper describes the Fintech industry in Italy, both as a whole and by main sector of activity, through an analysis of the financial statements of Fintech operators not subject to banking supervision. The results outline an ecosystem composed largely of small firms – heterogeneous in terms of corporate form, activity and balance sheet structure – that are experiencing strong turnover growth (especially in the insurance, credit, deposit and payments sectors), with encouraging signs of improvement in terms of profitability. However, the sustainability of the business models applied, mainly focused on building a reference market and increasing the customer base, is often guaranteed by multiple rounds of external financing. Overall, these findings suggest that the Fintech sector in Italy is still in its development and consolidation phase but could become strategic for the financial industry in the future.

Suggested Citation

  • Serena Palazzo & Gabriele Sene, 2024. "The Fintech ecosystem in Italy: an analysis based on the financial statements of a sample of firms," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 862, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_862_24
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/qef/2024-0862/QEF_862_24.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thakor, Anjan, 2020. "Corrigendum to: Fintech and Banking: What Do We Know?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    2. Polasik, Michał & Huterska, Agnieszka & Iftikhar, Rehan & Mikula, Štěpán, 2020. "The impact of Payment Services Directive 2 on the PayTech sector development in Europe," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 385-401.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jiapin Deng & Yanchu Liu & Wenyue Xiao, 2025. "Too costly to make a difference: An examination on the relationship between online financing and economic growth," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(1), pages 904-924, January.
    2. Sánchez, Marisa A., 2022. "A multi-level perspective on financial technology transitions," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    3. Nanaeva, Zhamal & Aysan, Ahmet Faruk & Shirazi, Nasim Shah, 2021. "Open banking in Europe: The impact of the Revised Payments Services Directive on Solarisbank and Insha," MPRA Paper 110763, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Choudhary, Priya & Thenmozhi, M., 2024. "Fintech and financial sector: ADO analysis and future research agenda," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    5. Mohammed T. Abusharbeh, 2024. "Technology-Profitability Paradox in Banking Sector: Evidence from Palestine," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(3), pages 14855-14873, September.
    6. Berger, Allen N. & Boot, Arnoud W.A., 2024. "Financial intermediation services and competition analyses: Review and paths forward for improvement," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    7. Deng, Yumiao & Fang, Mengmeng & Ma, Sichao & Wang, Fanzhi & Wu, Wanting, 2025. "The impact of bank FinTech on green credit allocation: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    8. Ege Aksu & Sidhya Balakrishnan & Eric Bettinger & Jonathan S. Hartley & Michael S. Kofoed & Dubravka Ritter & Douglas A. Webber, 2024. "Navigating Higher Education Insurance: An Experimental Study on Demand and Adverse Selection"," Working Papers 24-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    9. Karim, Sitara & Lucey, Brian M., 2024. "BigTech, FinTech, and banks: A tangle or unity?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    10. Igor Khanin & Volodimir Bilozubenko & Yevhen Sopin, 2022. "Improving The Level Of Economic Effectiveness Of Electronic Payment Services In A Global Digital Economy," Baltic Journal of Economic Studies, Publishing house "Baltija Publishing", vol. 8(1).
    11. Rayenda Khresna Brahmana & Maria Kontesa & Josephine Tan-Hwang Yau, 2024. "Does information seeking moderate the relationship between financial loan inclusion and Fintech P2P lending?," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 29(1), pages 171-185, March.
    12. Isabelle Flückiger & Meryem Duygun, 2022. "New technologies and data in insurance," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 47(3), pages 495-498, July.
    13. Kowalewski, Oskar & Pisany, Paweł, 2022. "Banks' consumer lending reaction to fintech and bigtech credit emergence in the context of soft versus hard credit information processing," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    14. Nam Thanh Vu & Hung Quang Bui & Tuan Anh Pham & Duc Hong Vo, 2024. "Fintech development and environmental sustainability: Does income inequality matter?," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(2), pages 350-369, June.
    15. Chen, Fu & Li, Fangfang & Xu, Jie & Sun, Yongtai & Li, Fangyuan, 2024. "Nexus between green credit efficiency and strategic, business and management digital transformation–based on 114 commercial banks in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 1242-1257.
    16. Krzysztof Waliszewski & Anna Warchlewska, 2021. "How we can benefit from personal finance management applications during the COVID-19 pandemic? The Polish case," Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, vol. 8(3), pages 681-699, March.
    17. Huang, Shuo, 2022. "Does FinTech improve the investment efficiency of enterprises? Evidence from China’s small and medium-sized enterprises," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 571-586.
    18. Paul Beaumont & Huan Tang & Éric Vansteenberghe, 2024. "Collateral Effects: The Role of FinTech in Small Business Lending [Effets collatéraux : le rôle des Fintechs dans le financement des petites et moyennes entreprises]," Débats Economiques et financiers 42, Banque de France.
    19. Tianlei Pi & Haoxuan Hu & Jingyi Lu & Xue Chen, 2022. "The Analysis of Fintech Risks in China: Based on Fuzzy Models," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-13, April.
    20. Hwa-Sung Kim, 2023. "Effects of ambiguity on innovation strategies," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 1-27, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fintech; financial innovation; business models; balance-sheet analysis; performance; sustainability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • M21 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics - - - Business Economics
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_862_24. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdigvit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.