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FinTech Innovation Hub
The FinTech Innovation Hub on the University of Delaware’s Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Campus is a nexus for high-quality education, groundbreaking research and workforce development in the exciting field of financial technology. It serves as a national center of excellence that leverages the region’s expertise and assets to address broad challenges in financial health.
Created through a partnership with Delaware Technology Park and Discover Bank, and with state and federal funding, the FinTech Innovation Hub brings together unique strengths and resources to create the tools to help individuals and families build wealth and fair access to credit, to support entrepreneurs and to continue growing the robust financial-services sector and small business community. UD students benefit through experiential learning, research and engagement opportunities, preparing them to lead and succeed in this high-demand industry.
The FinTech Innovation Hub also plays a key role in economic development in Delaware. Since the 1980s, Delaware has been a global leader in banking and financial services, which account for 9% of the state’s jobs. The Hub’s assets and its prime location in the mid-Atlantic technology corridor help Delaware secure and expand its central role in these sectors, while also attracting greater investment from out-of-state firms.
“The FinTech Innovation Hub adds another gem to UD’s STAR Campus, where collaborative hubs in health and life sciences already are thriving and strengthening the economy of the whole region. The research and innovation at this new hub will expand Delaware’s legacy of national leadership in financial services, drawing on UD’s top-shelf expertise in finance and technology. It also opens new space for education, giving our students access to a highly collaborative ecosystem and preparing them for great jobs and future success. And it puts UD and the state at the forefront of promoting equity in financial services and health — two serious problems facing our world.” — UD President Dennis Assanis
Meet the Co-Directors
The University of Delaware’s burgeoning endeavors in financial technology — fintech, for short — will have new leadership, effective September 1.
Nektarios Tsoutsos, an expert in cybersecurity in the College of Engineering, and Gang Wang, an expert in adoption of digital technologies and their societal impact in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics, will direct UD’s fintech ecosystem, taking over for colleagues who set the table last year — Prof. Carlos Asarta of Lerner and Prof. Rudolf Eigenmann of the College of Engineering.
FinTech and Financial Institutions Research Conference
The insightful findings and analyses shared by industry experts at the inaugural conference in April 2024 are accessible below. This event was jointly planned and sponsored by the University of Delaware and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Information about future conferences will be shared here when it is available.
2024 CONFERENCE materials
FINTECH AND FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS RESEARCH CONFERENCE
Session 1: Chair - Jack Bao
Algorithmic Underwriting in High Risk Mortgage Markets by Janet Gao, Hanyi Livia Yi and David Zhang *Best Paper Award Recipients*
Discussant: Matthew C. Plosser
Mobile Internet, Digital Collateral, and Banking by Angelo D’Andrea, Patrick Hitayezu, Roland K Kpodar, Nicola Limodio, and Andrea Presbitero Discussant: Apoorv Gupta
Session 2: Chair - Daniel Sanches
A Theory of Speculation in Community Assets by Kevin Mei and Michael Sockin
Discussant: Ariel Zetlin-Jones
Reaching for Yield in Decentralized Financial Markets by Patrick Augustin, Roy Chen-Zhang, and Donghwa Shin
Discussant: Shimon Kogan
Keynote: Manju Puri
Session 3: Chair - Phil Strahan
Old Program, New Banks: Online Banks in Small Business Lending by Elizabeth Bickmore, Andrew MacKinlay, and Yessenia Tellez
Discussant: John Hackney
Bank Branch Density and Bank Runs by Efraim Benmelech, Jun Yang, and Michal Zator
Discussant: Jinyuan Zhang
Session 4: Chair - David Yermack
Digital Veblen Goods by Sebeom Oh, Samuel Rosen, and Anthony Zhang
Discussant: Joseph Abadi
Artificial Intelligence and Customer Acquisition in Retail Financial Services: Experimental Evidence from Insurance Distribution by Xing Liu Discussant: Lindsey Raymond
2024 KEYNOTE SPEAKER - MANJU PURI
We are pleased to announce that our keynote speaker will be Manju Puri, J. B. Fuqua Professor of Finance at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.
Professor Puri has expertise in the field of empirical corporate finance and, in particular, financial intermediation. Her published work spans the areas of commercial banks, investment banks, venture capital, entrepreneurship, behavioral finance, and FinTech. Her research has appeared in publications such as American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Review of Financial Studies. She has been the recipient of the Sloan Research Fellowship as well as multiple awards from the National Science Foundation. Her publication record includes over 30 refereed papers in the top finance and economic journals. Her research has won many awards including four best paper awards at the FMA Annual Meetings, two Western Finance Association best paper awards, an All-Star award from Journal of Financial Economics, the Brennan best paper award at the Review of Financial Studies, and three Fama-DFA /Jenson best paper awards in the Journal of Financial Economics.
Organizers
- Michael Gelman, University of Delaware
- Paul Laux, University of Delaware
- Vitaly Meursault, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Program Committee
- Joseph Abadi, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
- Jack Bao, University of Delaware
- Isil Erel, The Ohio State University
- Xiao Fang, University of Delaware
- Laura Field, University of Delaware
- Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Yale University
- Itay Goldstein, University of Pennsylvania
- Deeksha Gupta, Johns Hopkins University
- Wenli Li, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
- Marina Niessner, Indiana University
- Raluca Roman, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
- Alberto Rossi, Georgetown University
- Philip Strahan, Boston College
- James Vickery, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
- Gloria Yang Yu, Singapore Management University
Lunch & Learn Series
Bi-weekly on Wednesdays. Lunch will be provided.
The FinTech Lunch & Learn events bring together the UD community with corporate occupants of the FinTech Innovation Hub facility and fintech stakeholders in the greater Delaware region. During the events, we will discuss issues and collaborative opportunities in financial technology and its applications aiming to advance financial services and to address related societal problems.
Upcoming:
Keep an eye out for events as they are scheduled.
Previously:
May 24, 2024: DelawareBio (Michael Fleming), Health Risk Analytics (Prof. Jiaheng Xie) and FinTech's Exponential Impact Potential with Special Student Groups (Prof. Amanda Bullough)
May 8, 2024: DelTechpark/Growthstage (Pedro Moore), Creating Fintech Startups (Andrew Novocin)
April 10, 2024: CollegeAve (Joe DePaulo) and UD Center for Economic Education and Entrepreneurship, CEEE (Carlos Asarta)
Mar. 13, 2024: Tech Impact and Impact of Technologies (Prof. Gang Wang)
Feb. 28, 2024: The Kendal Corporation and UD Center for Cybersecurity, Assurance and Privacy
Feb. 14, 2024: Using the FinTech Innovation Hub to advance financial technology and wellness in Delaware.
To receive updates on the FinTech Lunch & Learn events, please join the fintech-ud@udel.edu mailing list by contacting nglittle@udel.edu.
2024 Fintech Technology Workshop
Held in May 2024, the workshop brought together researchers, practitioners and industry experts to discuss the latest advancements, challenges and opportunities in the fintech space. Presenters included representatives of the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. Treasury and multiple higher education institutions. The event, which drew 60 participants, was sponsored by Discover Bank and Aramark.
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ABOUT THE FINTECH INNOVATION HUB FACILITY
Located on the University of Delaware’s Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Campus, the FinTech Innovation Hub enables ground-breaking research and cross-disciplinary collaborations. It provides space, resources and technical assistance to early-stage financial and business software entrepreneurs and startup companies.
RESOURCES
Spaces for startups to develop and grow, managed by Delaware Technology Park, with onsite access to business development resources and technical assistance
Labs and centers associated within UD’s College of Engineering and Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics focused on financial analytics and literacy, cybersecurity, human-machine learning and data analysis
The Data Innovation Lab, a division of Tech Impact, which will convene policymakers, entrepreneurs, corporate innovators and community advocates, including through a year-long, full-time fellowship program
Tenant Organizations
UD-Affiliated
Facilitates teams of AI partners within and outside UD to collaboratively apply technological solutions and create impactful and beneficial AI projects.
One-on-one hoteling space for career advisors and community outreach professionals to facilitate conversations among students, business leaders, entrepreneurs, research scientists and engineers, yielding a team-based mentoring approach that is a critical component of workforce development and community engagement.
Advances the research frontiers and the underlying infrastructure at the nexus of computational and data science, enabled by high-performance computing and big data.
Provides more than 2,000 teachers annually with high quality, grade-appropriate professional development and peer-networking opportunities to empower them to deliver the practical skills students need to graduate as economically literate and flourishing citizens.
Explores programming models and their usage to parallelize and accelerate scientific applications on large scale supercomputers.
Empowers aspiring innovators as they pursue new ideas for a better world. Committed to supporting student success and cultivating a lifelong community of collaboration, connections and impact through venture development, and academic programs, certificates and the Innovation Fellows program.
Facilitates the economic impact of UD’s research commercialization for the benefit of the public and the state. The Office includes the Technology Transfer Office (TTO), the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and the APEX Accelerator Delaware.
Partners
Advancing financial health and wellness for low- to moderate-income populations and other underserved communities by supporting and scaling real-world technology solutions.
Serves diverse life-science sectors with the goal of expanding the state’s vibrant science-based economy. Delaware Bio’s 130-plus member companies and organizations represent 8,000 innovation-based jobs vital to Delaware’s economic future.
The largest consumer-only bank in the U.S. and a leading fintech employer in Delaware, Discover Bank has established a $36 million venture fund and has deployed $40 million in Community Reinvestment Act funds to develop the FinTech Innovation Hub.
The first healthcare analytics company to deliver multi-dimensional and patient performance data and comparative efficacy metrics to optimize the continuum of care.
A leading national not-for-profit organization of communities, programs and services that advocate for and empower older adults to achieve their full potential with a focus on financial literacy, equity and digital security. Kendal has located its national HQ to STAR Campus and has a university-collaboration model that drives innovation.
A team of professionals that innovates in global supply chain functions and risk, and developers that build innovative, high-performance applications.
A non-profit organization that leverages technology to advance social impact, partnering with hundreds of non-profit organizations around the world to realize the potential of technology to achieve their mission and improve outcomes.
To stay updated on activities and opportunities for participation:
- Nektarios Tsoutsos, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, tsousos@udel.edu
- Gang Wang, associate professor of management information systems, gangw@udel.edu
To discuss business opportunities or for other information:
- Tracy Shickel, Associate Vice President of Corporate Engagement, tshickel@udel.edu, 302-513-1366
Thomas R. Carper Train Station will continue to connect STAR Campus to cities along the East Coast