Regulating Digital Fintech: How States Navigate Power and Geopolitics

This study explores the evolving role of fintech regulation as a strategic tool of geopolitical influence, highlighting how states leverage digital finance, data governance and artificial intelligence to reshape global power structures. It contrasts the regulatory models of the United States, China, and the European Union, each guided by distinct imperatives of innovation, state control, and digital sovereignty. The analysis underscores the growing politicization of fintech and the intensifying race for digital supremacy among major powers. Within this context, the article engages with issues of data decentralization, cross-sectoral data-sharing, and open banking—developments that promote financial inclusion and innovation but also generate complex governance challenges. The study concludes that coordinated transnational regulatory frameworks are essential to safeguarding financial stability and mitigating systemic risks in an increasingly contested and fragmented digital financial ecosystem.