Economic Basis of Digital Banking Services Produced by FinTech Company in Smart City

Abstract

The accelerated urbanization rate results in the birth of the Smart City concept, presupposing the more efficient use of digital technologies for the benefit of inhabitants and businesses. The idea of digital banking is one of the key issues in a smart city concept. The research should demonstrate that the efficient and effective way to produce such kind of services is to use the fintech companies’ facilities. Many researchers study fintech from a technological point of view, the contribution of fintech to general banking, the level of satisfaction of customers with fintech products. However, there is a gap in studying the economic basis of these companies. The research aims to determine the economic basis for the projects implemented by the fintech company and to determine the source of the efficiency of these companies in financial operations compared to the conventional bank. It has additional importance since the analysis of research devoted to technological solutions demonstrates a certain lacuna in the economic substantiation of such smart solutions. The results of this study are based on the implementation of traditional Cost-Benefit and Total Cost of Ownership analyses and include the developed cost and income functions, calculated Benefit/Cost ratio, and demonstrated the source of efficiency of fintech company compared to a traditional bank. Therefore, the activities of a fintech company in the area of digital banking received the economic ground, and this fact decreases the gap between intuitive comprehension of the necessity of the introduction of smart solutions in practice and the economic substantiation of this process.