FinTech is about the introduction of new technologies into the financial sector, and it is now revolutionizing the financial industry. In 2017, when the academic finance community was not actively researching FinTech, the editorial team of the Review of Financial Studies launched a competition to develop research proposals focused on this topic. This special issue is the result. In this introductory article, we describe the recent FinTech phenomenon and the novel editorial protocol employed for this special issue following the Registered Reports format. We discuss what we learned from the submitted proposals about the field of FinTech and which ones we selected to be completed and ultimately come out in this special issue. We also provide several observations to help guide future research in the emerging area of FinTech

We provide large-scale evidence on the occurrence and value of FinTech innovation. Using data on patent filings from 2003 to 2017, we apply machine learning to identify and classify innovations by their underlying technologies. We find that most FinTech innovations yield substantial value to innovators, with blockchain being particularly valuable. For the overall financial sector, internet of things (IoT), robo-advising, and blockchain are the most valuable innovation types. Innovations affect financial industries more negatively when they involve disruptive technologies from nonfinancial startups, but market leaders that invest heavily in their own innovation can avoid much of the negative value effect.ReceivedMay 31, 2017; editorial decision September 30, 2018 by Editor Andrew Karolyi

Technology-based (“FinTech”) lenders increased their market share of U.S. mortgage lending from 2% to 8% from 2010 to 2016. Using loan-level data on mortgage applications and originations, we show that FinTech lenders process mortgage applications 20% faster than other lenders, controlling for observable characteristics. Faster processing does not come at the cost of higher defaults. FinTech lenders adjust supply more elastically than do other lenders in response to exogenous mortgage demand shocks. In areas with more FinTech lending, borrowers refinance more, especially when it is in their interest. We find no evidence that FinTech lenders target borrowers with low access to finance.Received June 1, 2017; editorial decision November 5, 2018 by Editor Wei Jiang