Opportunities and Barriers for FinTech in SAARC and ASEAN Countries

Interlinking FinTech and eHealth: a qualitative study

Introduction

This study investigates the integration of financial technology (FinTech) and electronic health (eHealth) to explore the opportunities, challenges, and implications arising from their interlinkage in Saudi Arabia.

Methods

Utilizing qualitative semi-structured interviews with 26 participants-including physicians, patients, technical and administrative managers, and FinTech consultants-the research adopts an inductive approach to understand diverse perspectives.

Results

Key findings reveal significant benefits such as improved efficiency in administrative processes, enhanced access to healthcare services, increased financial inclusion, better decision-making, improved patient experience, and the promotion of innovation and sustainability. However, barriers including regulatory challenges, data privacy and security concerns, interoperability issues, the digital divide, resistance to change, and cost implications were also identified.

Conclusion

Overall, the integration of FinTech and eHealth holds substantial promise for advancing healthcare delivery in Saudi Arabia. Future implications include the expansion of telehealth services, an increase in startups, the integration of wearable health devices, blockchain-based systems, evolving regulatory frameworks, and heightened collaborations. Addressing the identified challenges is crucial for realizing the full potential of this integration.

Examining the influence of financial inclusion on investment decision: A bibliometric review

This study delves into the contemporary landscape of potential financial inclusion in investment decision-making, leveraging bibliometric research methods. Analyzing 161 publications from the Scopus database (2006-2023), the authors employ performance analysis and scientific mapping tools, including VOSviewer and Biblioshiny R studio. Through co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, co-occurrence of keywords analysis, thematic mapping, and thematic evolution analysis, the study uncovers the essential characteristics of the research field. The Result underscores that Innovative financial technologies are positioned as enablers of financial inclusion, with fintech's potential to drive positive social impact. The findings underscore that fostering financial literacy, addressing challenges in fintech adoption, and supporting entrepreneurship are crucial for maximizing the benefits of financial technologies. Overall, the study advocates for a comprehensive approach that combines financial inclusion, individual attitudes, and expertise, and fintech innovation to enhance access to financial services and expand investment opportunities for a more inclusive and prosperous economic landscape. However, the study acknowledges limitations, such as reliance on a single database and exclusion of specific keywords, urging a more inclusive approach to ensure a comprehensive understanding of relevant literature in this dynamic field.

HF-SCA: Hands-Free Strong Customer Authentication Based on a Memory-Guided Attention Mechanisms

Strong customer authentication (SCA) is a requirement of the European Union Revised Directive on Payment Services (PSD2) which ensures that electronic payments are performed with multifactor authentication. While increasing the security of electronic payments, the SCA impacted seriously on the shopping carts abandonment: an Italian bank computed that 22% of online purchases in the first semester of 2021 did not complete because of problems with the SCA. Luckily, the PSD2 allows the use of transaction risk analysis tool to exempt the SCA process. In this paper, we propose an unsupervised novel combination of existing machine learning techniques able to determine if a purchase is typical or not for a specific customer, so that in the case of a typical purchase the SCA could be exempted. We modified a well-known architecture (U-net) by replacing convolutional blocks with squeeze-and-excitation blocks. After that, a memory network was added in a latent space and an attention mechanism was introduced in the decoding side of the network. The proposed solution was able to detect nontypical purchases by creating temporal correlations between transactions. The network achieved 97.7% of AUC score over a well-known dataset retrieved online. By using this approach, we found that 98% of purchases could be executed by securely exempting the SCA, while shortening the customer’s journey and providing an elevated user experience. As an additional validation, we developed an Alexa skill for Amazon smart glasses which allows a user to shop and pay online by merely using vocal interaction, leaving the hands free to perform other activities, for example driving a car.

A study of Indian Gen X and Millennials consumers’ intention to use FinTech payment services during COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose

Amid the COVID-19 contamination, people are bound to use contactless FinTech payment services. Because of restrictions on physical movement and avoidance of touching physical money, people willingly choose mobile payment, resulting in enormous growth in FinTech payment service industries. Because of this, this study aims to examine the effect of factors affecting Gen X and Millennials users to use FinTech payment services.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors used 328 responses collected through convenience sampling of Indian users aged between 26 and 57 years in the Delhi-NCR region who are users of FinTech payment services.

Findings

The authors’ findings verified that in India, perceived COVID-19 risk, perceived severity for COVID, individual mobility, subjective norms, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness have statistically significant impacts on FinTech payment services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Structural equation modelling was used to study the proposed research model. Overall, the model predicted 76.9 % of the variation in intention to use FinTech payment services by the abovesaid variables by Indian users during a pandemic.

Practical implications

This study will provide valuable insight to all FinTech service providers and stakeholders in planning and designing the concerned policy. It will be able to draw the attention of users more.

Originality/value

This research added a valuable theory to the existing technology adoption model (TAM) theory. It demonstrated the utility of the above variables in adopting and using FinTech payment services, which will help service providers to develop future strategies because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mapping the Sustainable Human-Resource Challenges in Southeast Asia’s FinTech Sector

The significance of human resources (HRs) has increased with the increasing awareness of sustainability issues and corporate social responsibility. However, the rapidly emerging financial technology (FinTech) sector still presents an HR challenge. Southeast Asia, which accounts for the highest adoption rate of mobile banking, has set new records regarding the number of transactions, as well as funding amount, in recent years. Moreover, borderless financial cooperation, coupled with in-demand tech talents, will rapidly boost the development of the region. Thus, this study explored the new opportunities as well as challenges of a new business model, FinTech, in Southeast Asia’s banking and enterprise sector in the post-COVID-19 era. It also examined how organizations can achieve sustainable development via the interaction of the new operating model with existing ones by developing relevant strategies in the context of the “new normal” working condition. By reviewing the literature on HR management (HRM), we proposed how banking and FinTech companies could supply tech talent with the relevant experience or engage in training projects before recruiting. Additionally, since organizations desire sustainability-minded employees, they offer flexible working arrangements and well-established reward policies that can create remote work performance and retention rates. Being committed to upskilling and reskilling global talent by offering talent mobility opportunities across the organization, as well as by fully embracing the creation of value for cross-cultural talent, companies can support their employees’ long-term career goals and maintain competitive strength. Finally, organizations must focus more on flexible adjustments and cross-domain communication for global talent. Forming strategic alliances with FinTech companies would be an alternative conduit that can ensure that regional laws comply with the local culture and national law, for bias and conflict reduction.