How Fintech Has Affected the Public Discourse About Banking: Evidence from Twitter

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this paper is to understand how fintech has affected the public discourse about banking. The focus area of scholars has mostly been on technical and practical aspects of fintech and largely the public discourse around it has been overlooked. However, many prominent economists have argued that markets are social constructions and the dynamics of the social discourse is reflected in real business activity. By analysing over four million tweets on the Twitter social media platform we try to explain what dominating discourse the fintech movement brings about and how it has changed the public discourse. First, we conclude that since 2016 the number one topic in banking-related discussions on Twitter has been fintech; second, fintech tweets are generally associated with a significantly higher positive sentiment; and third, the positive sentiment of fintech has increased over the years. We add that the public discourse about banking is now mostly controlled by users that are promoting and advancing fintech. We argue that the immense popularity and positive sentiment of fintech enables new financial technology firms to gain power over the incumbents due to the shifting power relations in the market. This in turn could lead to structural changes in the banking market. However, we caution that even though the social stance is supportive towards fintech, the regulation regarding the new technology is largely in development and once enforced, it may favour incumbent banks to maintain control.