Fintech and Financial Regulation

Dear Colleagues,

This call for papers explores the profound transformation of financial systems in an era defined by technological innovation. As digital finance expands at an extraordinary speed, driven by artificial intelligence, blockchain technologies, digital banking, RegTech, and decentralized finance, regulators worldwide face unprecedented challenges in ensuring market integrity, consumer protection, financial stability, and ethical governance.

At the dawn of the 21st century, open banking and FinTech’s promise remains huge, as the rapid digitization and data monetisation of financial services have led to radical improvements in financial innovation, accessibility and financial inclusion, massive gains in efficiency, speed and cost reduction, as well as data-driven transparency and personalization. At the same time, it makes the industry’s risk management practices vulnerable to data breaches and the industry itself a prime target for financial expropriation. The financial ecosystem landscape is thus becoming increasingly risky and complex. Furthermore, varying rules across different jurisdictions create a challenging international environment for global expansion. Digital finance cannot exist without digital and regulatory compliance. One of the major challenges Fintechs and neo-banks are facing is managing regulatory risk and compliance. While this is an integral challenge for the whole financial industry, it is also one that is particularly felt by Fintech companies struggling with increasing regulatory complexity. As the industry approaches new financial breakthroughs, the most successful FinTechs of the future will be those that can innovate responsibly and, at the same time, manage risks pre-emptively and navigate the regulatory perimeter as effectively as their banking counterparts, thereby building trust currency with both customers and regulators. Regulation requires legal certainty, and as such, it is often reactive and struggles to keep pace with rapid innovation. Regulators are equally keen to proactively monitor risks and modernize oversight in this evolving regulatory landscape, requiring FinTechs to be agile in their compliance strategies. The key pressing issue in FinTech is thus the continuous encouragement of innovation within a robust risk management framework to sustain growth and stability without stifling competition.

We welcome papers that critically examine the evolving relationship between digital innovation and regulatory frameworks, identify emerging risks, propose adaptive regulatory strategies, and evaluate the wider economic, social, and ethical implications. We also encourage contributions from early-career researchers and industry–academic collaborations.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Regulatory challenges of AI-driven financial services;
• RegTech and SupTech innovations;
• Digital identity, data governance, and consumer protection;
• Crypto-assets, stablecoins, and digital currencies (CBDCs);
• Risk modelling and automated decision-making in financial markets;
• Cross-border regulatory harmonization and supervisory cooperation;
• Cybersecurity, operational resilience, and systemic risk in FinTech;
• ESG, green finance, and sustainability-oriented digital solutions;
• Legal and ethical implications of algorithmic finance;
• Financial inclusion and digital inequality.

Dr. Yiannis Anagnostopoulos
Dr. Emmanouil Noikokyris
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. FinTech is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• financial regulation
• compliance
• risk management
• fintech
• RegTech