IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bfi/wpaper/2026-14.html

FinTech and Customer Capital

Author

Listed:
  • Bianca He

    (University of Chicago)

  • Lauren Mostrom

    (University of Chicago)

  • Amir Sufi

    (University of Chicago – Booth School of Business and NBER)

Abstract

Financial Technology (“FinTech†) firms invest significantly more in customer capital relative to traditional financial firms, and such investment builds valuable customer capital. Higher investment by FinTech firms is not accounted for by sectoral focus or differences in firm age. Reasons for higher customer capital investment are explored, including the need to build trust with customers, the focus on downstream segments of the financial marketplace, the operation of platform-based business models, and a heavier reliance on valuable customer data.

Suggested Citation

  • Bianca He & Lauren Mostrom & Amir Sufi, 2026. "FinTech and Customer Capital," Working Papers 2026-14, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:bfi:wpaper:2026-14
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repec.bfi.uchicago.edu/RePEc/pdfs/BFI_WP_2026-14.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. Jean-Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2003. "Platform Competition in Two-Sided Markets," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(4), pages 990-1029, June.
    3. Franklin Allen & Xian Gu & Julapa Jagtiani, 2021. "A Survey of Fintech Research and Policy Discussion," Review of Corporate Finance, now publishers, vol. 1(3-4), pages 259-339, July.
    4. Itamar Drechsler & Alexi Savov & Philipp Schnabl, 2017. "The Deposits Channel of Monetary Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(4), pages 1819-1876.
    5. Jean-Pierre Dubé & Sanjog Misra, 2023. "Personalized Pricing and Consumer Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 131(1), pages 131-189.
    6. Xugan Chen & Allen Hu & Song Ma, 2025. "How Do Banks Compete? Evidence from Advertising Videos," NBER Working Papers 34220, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Bruno Jullien & Alessandro Pavan, 2019. "Information Management and Pricing in Platform Markets," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(4), pages 1666-1703.
    8. Vasso Ioannidou & Steven Ongena, 2010. "“Time for a Change”: Loan Conditions and Bank Behavior when Firms Switch Banks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1847-1877, October.
    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. Boot, Arnoud & Hoffmann, Peter & Laeven, Luc & Ratnovski, Lev, 2021. "Fintech: what’s old, what’s new?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    2. Hasan, Iftekhar & Kwak, Boreum & Li, Xiang, 2024. "Financial technologies and the effectiveness of monetary policy transmission," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    3. Babina, Tania & Bahaj, Saleem & Buchak, Greg & De Marco, Filippo & Foulis, Angus & Gornall, Will & Mazzola, Francesco & Yu, Tong, 2025. "Customer data access and fintech entry: Early evidence from open banking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    4. Huang, Yiping & Li, Xiang & Qiu, Han & Su, Dan & Yu, Changhua, 2024. "Bigtech credit, small business, and monetary policy transmission: Theory and evidence," IWH Discussion Papers 18/2022, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), revised 2024.
    5. Huang, Yiping & Li, Xiang & Qiu, Han & Yu, Changhua, 2023. "BigTech credit and monetary policy transmission: Micro-level evidence from China," BOFIT Discussion Papers 2/2023, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    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. 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).
    8. 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.
    9. Liu, Shiyu & Wang, Bo & Zhang, Qianqian, 2024. "Fintech regulation and bank liquidity creation: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    10. Li, Linwen & Gao, Wei & Gu, Wanhong, 2023. "Fintech, bank concentration and commercial bank profitability: Evidence from Chinese urban commercial banks," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    11. Bontems, Philippe & Hamilton, Stephen F. & Lepore, Jason, 2025. "Sequential pricing on multisided platforms," TSE Working Papers 25-1658, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised 10 Jun 2026.
    12. Fabio Bertoni & Stefano Bonini & Vincenzo Capizzi & Massimo G. Colombo & Sophie Manigart, 2022. "Digitization in the Market for Entrepreneurial Finance: Innovative Business Models and New Financing Channels," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 46(5), pages 1120-1135, September.
    13. Martin Peitz, 2024. "The Economic Theory of Two-Sided Platforms," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2024_584, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    14. Carrillo, Juan D. & Tan, Guofu, 2021. "Platform competition with complementary products," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    15. Belleflamme, Paul & Peitz, Martin, 2019. "Price disclosure by two-sided platforms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    16. Anderson, Simon P. & Peitz, Martin, 2020. "Media see-saws: Winners and losers in platform markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    17. Arthur William Fodouop Kouam, 2025. "Steering the digital shift: the role of fintech in transforming banking in emerging markets," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 5(10), pages 1-21, October.
    18. Saklain, Md Sohel, 2024. "FinTech, systemic risk and bank market power – Australian perspective," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PA).
    19. Argudo, Esteban, 2025. "Monetary policy transmission via nonbank lending: Evidence from peer-to-peer loans," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    20. Douglas J. Cumming & Andrea Martinez-Salgueiro & Robert S. Reardon & Ahmed Sewaid, 2022. "COVID-19 bust, policy response, and rebound: equity crowdfunding and P2P versus banks," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 47(6), pages 1825-1846, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • M3 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bfi:wpaper:2026-14. 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: Toni Shears The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Toni Shears to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mfichus.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.