Christine Lagarde warns against the turmoil caused by fintechs | News | DW



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Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), warned Saturday that the increasing use of big data and artificial intelligence by technology giants was disrupting the global financial system.

"A major disruption of the financial landscape is likely to come from large technology companies, who will be using their huge customer base and deep pockets to offer financial products based on big data and artificial intelligence," Lagarde said. from a symposium on) on the sidelines of the G20 leaders' summit to be held over the weekend in Fukuoka, Japan.

The rapid growth of financial technologies has facilitated the access of low-income groups to low-cost payment and settlement systems in developing countries, where traditional banking networks are scarce.

Read more: Is financial technology the last weapon in the fight against poverty?

Global policymakers are wary of the growing dominance of fintechs in mobile payments as they rethink ways to regulate the banking system. They fear that the stability of the entire economic system will be compromised, as fintechs may disrupt the centuries-old financial sector.

Among startups, Stripe provides services to Amazon and Microsoft for payment processing. The US company created in 2011 could amount to $ 22.5 billion (19.8 billion euros), according to some private market valuations cited by Bloomberg. Last year, Stripe announced new products, including a technology for credit card issuance, point-of-sale software and a billing platform for subscription companies.

Read more: Emerging markets fuel higher non-monetary transactions

Fintech dominance

The IMF is urging world leaders to take more action to counter the growing use of financial technologies, which, by controlling payment and settlement systems, could make international financial networks vulnerable.

"This represents a unique systematic challenge for financial stability and efficiency, and I hope we can talk about it during the G20, and deal with it in a co-operative and consistent manner," said Lagarde.

The IMF chief also said that the presence of technology giants in China is a major challenge in this regard.

"In the past five years, China's technological growth has been extremely successful, enabling millions of newcomers to access financial products and create high-quality jobs," he said. she said. "But this has also led two companies to control more than 90 percent of the mobile payments market," added Lagarde.

Read more: US investor Warren Buffett has his eyes riveted on the financial technology market in India

shs / ​​jm (Reuters, AFP)

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