The Expansion of Big Data Companies in the Financial Services Industry, and EU Regulation

New firms are entering the EU financial services industry and exploiting the technological gap left by incumbent institutions. Big data companies are playing an important role in shaping the current financial services landscape, especially in the area of digital payments, where they have developed a range of innovative services (e.g., Apple pay, Google pay). Given this context, regulation plays a key role in assuring a level playing field between new and existing players on the market, prompting competition, stimulating firms’ interoperability and protecting consumers’ confidence in the overall stability of the system. At the same time, compliance costs might hinder the ability of newcomers to develop new services and products on a broader scale. Assessing the impact of the current EU financial services legal framework on the expansion strategies of tech firms has, therefore, become an urgent undertaking.

Paper prepared in the framework of the IAI-Intesa Sanpaolo Partnership, March 2019. Presented in Milan on 6 June 2019 in the event entitld "The rise of tech giants. A game-changer in global finance and politics".