The Real Impact of FinTech: Evidence from Mobile Payment Technology

We utilize the introduction of mobile payment technology by the largest bank in Singapore in 2017 to study how mobile payment technology reshapes economic activities and stimulates business creation. After the introduction, business-to-consumer industries witnessed 18.3% more business creation relative to business-to-business industries, with the effect driven by small firms and more pronounced among industries with higher cash handling costs. Underlying this pattern is consumers’ strong adoption of mobile payment and a reduction in ATM cash withdrawals during the post-shock period. The reduced transaction cost also increases consumers’ spending capacity, which justifies the business growth. Interestingly, part of the increased consumer demand is credit card spending. The pattern of changes is consistent with the bank’s adjustment to the technological change: it reduces ATMs and allows more credit card openings and higher credit limits. This paper was accepted by Camelia Kuhnen, finance. Funding: Y. Ren received financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72303210], the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant LQ24G010001], and the major project of the National Social Science Fund of China [Grant 24&ZD088]. S. Agarwal acknowledges the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72495154]. Supplemental Material: The internet appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.03947 .