Customers, consumers, and end-users, as innovators in FinTech

The University of Glasgow’s Adam Smith Business School is pleased to host this round-table discussion as part of Scotland’s FinTech Festival. We will be featuring contributions from leading industry experts and university researchers. We also draw inspiration from Adam Smith as we continue to mark Adam Smith 300, the tercentenary of his birth.

FinTech focuses on innovation. The focus is often on the development, production and marketing of new, often disruptive, products and services. End-users, consumers and customers have been less in focus.

In policy and regulation, there is a growing recognition of the role that consumers play in expanding and drawing out the potential benefits of FinTech and financial services, of establishing a Fintech for good. The UK Financial Conduct Authority introduced the Consumer Duty in July 2023, as a contribution to support consumers, so adding resilience and growth to the market. We observe similar initiatives internationally.

Famously, Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations, reflected on the division of labour as a vital and dynamic process of economic growth requiring the interplay of specialising and coordinating. The division of labour is limited by the extent of the market. Corporate growth, scale, competition, entry, and their coordination, depend on the growth of the market. This means end-users, customers and consumers joining the market too, bringing their expertise and capabilities into the mix. Research broadly on lead-users in innovation, and increasingly in consumer research, demonstrates that consumption is rarely a near-automated release of the benefits of a product (good or service). Rather consumption is often a skilled set of learning and practices. How do we give these a safer place in financial markets?

Speaker Information

Ben Shenglin, Professor and Dean, Zhejiang International Business School, Zhejiang University

Dorothy Hamilton - Managing Director, Operations and Asset Servicing, and Scottish President, the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment

Wan Feng, Associate Professor of Management, Zhejiang International Business School, Zhejiang University

Betty Wu, Senior Lecturer in Finance, Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow

Chair - John Finch, Professor of Marketing, Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow

*Please note: this is an in-person only event*