Asian Economic Policy Review最新文献

{"title":"Comment on “Developments and Implications of Central Bank Digital Currency: The Case of China e-CNY”","authors":"Shinichi Uchida","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12381","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aepr.12381","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Xu (<span>2022</span>) contains a wide range of information regarding e-CNY, which facilitates our understanding of the project with concise explanation. It also covers most of the important issues on a central bank digital currency (CBDC) including the relationship between the public and private sectors, the roles of banks and nonbanks, the impacts of CBDC on the domestic and international financial systems, and anonymity and privacy issues.</p><p>Appreciating the overall structure of the paper, I have a few comments. First, one feature of e-CNY, which has implications for the financial and monetary system, is the limits on the amount of holdings and the value per transaction. These limits are designed to avoid an abrupt shift from commercial bank deposits to the CBDC. Xu's section 2 discusses the possibility of the unbundling of banking businesses into deposits, payments, and loans. In this context, the impacts of a CBDC could be different depending on its design choices, most importantly the holding/transaction limits, and the degree of public acceptance that result. Xu also discusses the impacts of e-CNY on money. As discussed rightly, a CBDC will affect M0, M1, and M2, and again, the impacts will depend on the design choices. Therefore, this point might be worth mentioning in Xu's paper.</p><p>Secondly and related to the first point, Xu speculates that the future banking business may be quite different from that in the past. This may be the case, but the issue is what will cause such changes. Xu points out various factors including the easier access to mutual funds by consumers, the greater use of nonbank payment services, and the wider use of data of fund-flows. These factors are, and will be, caused by digitalization itself, rather than by the introduction of a CBDC. It might be useful to elaborate the explanation in section 2 by distinguishing the impact of the general trend of digitalization in finance and that of the introduction of a CBDC.</p><p>Thirdly in relation to the legal tender status of e-CNY, Xu writes that “people cannot refuse to accept e-CNY as long as they have the facilities.” If merchants have the facilities, they will not refuse it. However, in many jurisdictions, the legal tender status is not enough to enforce them to use such form of a currency in a particular transaction. Merchants can always say they do not want to sell their goods to a customer with e-CNY or any payment instruments, based on the principle of freedom of contract. While I am a stranger to Chinese laws, I have heard that some merchants do refuse to sell their goods for paper CNY which has the status of being legal tender. While legal tender status will be an important advantage to private digital money, it is not perfect. In order to be accepted widely, a CBDC would need to have features that make people feel willing to use it, including being user-friendly.</p><p>In the current version of his paper, Xu explains the proposed design of the e-CNY mo","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"17 2","pages":"253-254"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12381","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89411793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on “Developments and Implications of Central Bank Digital Currency: The Case of China e-CNY”","authors":"Eswar Prasad","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12382","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aepr.12382","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Xu (<span>2022</span>) provides an overview of the structure and purpose of China's e-CNY and also discusses its implications for the international monetary system. In this comment, I will expand on some of the points in Xu's paper, drawing on Prasad (<span>2021</span>) and a forthcoming Hoover Institution report (Duffie <i>et al</i>., <span>2022</span>) that examines the implications of the e-CNY for US policy and geopolitical influence (I am a member of the working group).</p><p>The renminbi has become the fifth most important currency in international payments (based on SWIFT data). In 2016, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) included the renminbi in an elite basket of currencies that comprise the Special Drawing Rights, making it an official reserve currency. Since then, the renminbi's progress has stalled. The renminbi's share of international payments has fallen to about 2% and the share of global foreign exchange reserves held in renminbi-denominated assets has plateaued at about 3%.</p><p>China's rollout of the e-CNY trials makes it one of the first major economies to do so. The second phase of e-CNY trials is already underway in a number of major metropolises and with a number of financial and nonfinancial institutions participating. Will the e-CNY be a game changer that elevates the renminbi's role in international finance?</p><p>The e-CNY will initially only be usable for payments within China, although this could change over time. In my assessment, China's Cross-border Interbank Payments System (CIPS) is a more important innovation that makes it easier to use the currency for international transactions. CIPS also has messaging capabilities, which makes it possible to bypass SWIFT and could help evade US direct as well as indirect financial sanctions, a tempting prospect for many governments around the world. As the renminbi becomes more widely used, countries that have strong trade and financial links with China might start to invoice and settle their trade transactions directly in that currency. The e-CNY could eventually be linked up to the cross-border payments system, further digitizing international payments.</p><p>However, the e-CNY by itself will make little difference to the renminbi as a reserve currency. One reason is that cross-border capital flows into and out of China are subject to restrictions. Another is that the renminbi's exchange rate is still managed by China's central bank. The Chinese government has certainly reduced restrictions on capital flows and signaled its plans to eventually have an open capital account. Moreover, the central bank has committed to reducing its intervention in foreign exchange markets and letting market forces have their say.</p><p>Still, in reality, China's government has shown that, when pressures build up for significant currency moves as capital flows shift, it will revert to its command and control mentality by tightening capital controls and exchange rate management. Foreign in","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"17 2","pages":"251-252"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12382","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76326575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on “Why Fintech Is Not Changing Japanese Banking”","authors":"Yuko Kawai","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12394","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aepr.12394","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Iwashita (<span>2022</span>) argues that Japan's FinTech is underdeveloped as banks and their customers, especially the elderly and conservative corporate customers, cling to the traditional financial service formats. He further argues that the supremacy of banking services before the Internet era may have hindered changes on the supply side, that is, the service level was sufficiently convenient therefore the relevant parties did not want to expose themselves to the risks of cyberattacks and the costs of system renewals. Iwashita also mentions that the aging population may have worked against digitization due to the low digital literacy of the elderly.</p><p>Iwashita (<span>2022</span>) also touches on the possibility of near-future developments, to be prompted by the global advancements in digitalization, the supporting attitude of the Japanese government to promote technological progresses, and the changing attitudes of customers. The change of tax filing obligations expected in 2023 is also mentioned as a factor which may promote the electronification of receipts and invoices, leading to more digital payments.</p><p>I agree with most of the points presented in Iwashita (<span>2022</span>). While Japan's FinTech industry became active in around 2015,<sup>1</sup> which almost coincided with the timing of the start of FinTech activities in other parts of the world, the progress of less-cash and more-efficient financial services has been slower in Japan in comparison to her international peers since then. As Iwashita indicates, the Covid crisis has accelerated the change of attitudes of financial institutions, customers and the government in Japan.</p><p>To further deepen the analysis and enhance the value of the recommendations presented by Iwashita (<span>2022</span>), I would like to suggest following points.</p><p>First, to expand the list of possible actions by banks and the government to promote FinTech in Japan, it may be worthwhile to identify changes of the payment systems in some European countries achieving less-cash status while, like Japan, their societies are aging and their banking systems are well developed. Sweden, where cash usage has decreased in an extraordinary manner (Riksbank (Sweden), <span>2017</span>; Bach <i>et al</i>., <span>2018</span>), suggests that the central bank's actions to promote an effective cash handling system by imposing the costs on to the private sector, and technological developments to make digital methods cheaper and more convenient may have contributed to the extraordinary rapid decline of cash usage. Another analysis (Riksbank (Sweden), <span>2020</span>) offers the hypothesis that the combination of a couple of events, such as the introduction of mandatory receipt issuance for cash and the popularization of a bank-consortium-led digital payment application, made cash less attractive to digital methods. By learning from these examples, Japan may be able to build concrete action plans to promote ","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"17 2","pages":"311-312"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12394","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89228142","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on “Why Fintech Is Not Changing Japanese Banking”","authors":"Teruo Nakatsuma","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12391","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aepr.12391","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Although the term “fintech” has now filtered down into everyday language, fintech services have not yet been fully integrated into everyday life, at least in Japan. Iwashita (<span>2022</span>) overviews the current disappointing state of fintech in Japan, assesses which conditions keep fintech services from taking off, and discusses potential “game changers” that would pave the way for fintech services to gain wider acceptance in the coming decade.</p><p>Iwashita (<span>2022</span>) points out two major hindrances to which he attributes the low acceptance of fintech services in Japan; one is related to consumers' attitudes to digital devices and the other is related to corporations' readiness for digital technologies.</p><p>The first hindrance is the hesitation of older people to use digital devices such as personal computers and smartphones. Unlike the younger people who have been using such devices from their childhood, the older people still favor face-to-face communication. Given that the older retired people tend to accumulate more savings than younger working-age people, Japanese banks have an incentive to accommodate those older customers with traditional face-to-face services.</p><p>The second is the unpreparedness or unwillingness of Japanese companies to adopt new digital technologies. Iwashita's (<span>2022</span>) Table 3 compares Japan with three other developed countries (USA, UK, and Germany) in terms of business information and communication technology (ICT) tool usage, which shows that Japanese companies use ICT tools far less than the others in all respects. This does not necessarily mean that Japanese companies did nothing about information technology (IT) investment. Iwashita states that they did reasonably invest in their IT systems for financial accounting, billing, payments, and other accounting tasks, but their systems are mostly for internal use and have little interoperability with the internet. In addition, national and municipal governments face the same problem of legacy IT systems. As a result, Japanese banks need to maintain their traditional channels of financial transactions for the continuation of business relations with private companies as well as government agencies.</p><p>Iwashita (<span>2022</span>), however, claims that the inertia can be broken and fintech services will become more widely accepted in Japan for the following five reasons. First, the global expansion of digital finance. Fintech services are rapidly expanding in emerging economies, and this trend will put pressure on Japanese financial service users. Second, the digitization of government services. Japan's Digital Agency was established on September 1, 2021. It is designed to oversee the digitization of government services at both national and municipal levels, which may ease the Japanese people's fears of the internet, in general, and breaches of privacy, in particular. Third, the shifts in strategic goals of financial institutions. Nega","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"17 2","pages":"313-314"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12391","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83041489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Why Fintech Is Not Changing Japanese Banking","authors":"Naoyuki Iwashita","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12390","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aepr.12390","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Several years have passed since fintech first attracted attention in Japan. Although various new fintech services have emerged due to deregulation and policies to promote fintech's development and adoption, the overall composition and functioning of Japan's financial industry has not changed significantly despite fintech advances in other economies. The industry in Japan continues to be dominated by face-to-face interactions and has experienced little digitization. In Japan, sophisticated financial services were available before the widespread use of the internet, and most people have resisted conducting financial transactions using their smartphones. In addition, there has been almost no progress in digitizing accounting work in corporations. However, this stagnation in digitization on the demand side of financial services is changing for several reasons. Digitization in the government sector and the introduction of a new invoice system in 2023 will provide an opportunity for change. This time, Japan's financial services should undergo a significant digital transformation.</p>","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"17 2","pages":"297-310"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86088475","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on “Chinese Fintech Innovation and Regulation”","authors":"Johannes Ehrentraud","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12389","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aepr.12389","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;While the digitalization of finance is a global phenomenon, the trend is most remarkable in China, which is now home to two of the largest tech companies—big techs—in the world (Alibaba and Tencent). Against this backdrop, Chinese regulators have been confronted with the Herculean challenge to find a balance that embraces the promise of fintech while reducing potential harm to the financial system.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chorzempa and Huang (&lt;span&gt;2022&lt;/span&gt;) offer a review of the development of fintech in China and related regulatory actions. They highlight a number of yet unresolved policy issues, draw lessons from China's experience and offer some recommendations for Chinese authorities. Their paper concludes by assessing the regulatory response to fintech in China as being largely successful.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In China, to a large part, discussing fintech means discussing big techs. China is the largest market for both fintech credit and big tech credit in the world (FSB, &lt;span&gt;2020&lt;/span&gt;); and two big tech firms jointly account for 94% of its mobile payments market (Carstens &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt;., &lt;span&gt;2021&lt;/span&gt;). In 2018, big techs processed payments equivalent to 38% of gross domestic product (GDP) and they now have market capitalizations and credit ratings comparable to those of large banks (FSB, &lt;span&gt;2020&lt;/span&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Big techs have unique business models that differ from those of fintech players. Most importantly, big techs are exploiting activities with strong network effects, under which every additional user creates value for all others (see chapter 3 in BIS, &lt;span&gt;2019&lt;/span&gt;). Chui (&lt;span&gt;2021&lt;/span&gt;) argues that these network effects can help explain the rise of Alibaba and Tencent, and that they ventured into financial services as a means to survive against competition, which is why he sees them as “accidental financiers” rather than “aggressive invaders”, at least during the initial stage.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Big techs' activities in financial services come with several policy challenges. Some are traditional policy concerns: financial risks, consumer protection and operational resilience; others are new challenges surrounding the concentration of market power and data governance (Carstens &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt;., &lt;span&gt;2021&lt;/span&gt;). These challenges are increasingly attracting the attention of policymakers. China is one of the countries where policy initiatives have emerged to cope with the risks presented by big techs, specifically in the areas of competition, data, conduct of business, operational resilience, and financial stability (Crisanto &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt;., &lt;span&gt;2021a&lt;/span&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Against this backdrop, Chorzempa and Huang review how fintech developed in China and what factors contributed to its growth. Their discussion usefully refers to the underlying economics of financial services in the context of digital innovation (Feyen &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt;., &lt;span&gt;2021&lt;/span&gt;); and contrasts the Chinese experience with that of other countries. Building on this, Chorzempa and Huang provid","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"17 2","pages":"295-296"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12389","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83331306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on “Measuring Digital Financial Inclusion in Emerging Market and Developing Economies: A New Index”","authors":"Yan Shen","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12387","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aepr.12387","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;Khera et al. (&lt;span&gt;2022&lt;/span&gt;) provides a novel measurement of digital financial inclusion using a three-stage principal component approach (PCA) for 52 emerging market and developing economies. Based on this new index, they have found that the adoption of digital financial services has been a key driver of financial inclusion, and countries/regions in Africa and Asia and regions have achieved greater progress. They also warn against a digital divide and call for policies to close the gap.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The novelty of this new index rests on three characteristics: it is focused; it is comprehensive, and it utilizes the PCA approach. This index focuses on the payment aspects of financial inclusion, and considers the “access” and “usage” aspects of both digital and traditional aspects of financial inclusion. The three-stage PCA approach first extracts the supply-side and demand-side aspects of financial inclusion for both traditional and digital financial services, then extracts the principal components of the access and usage indices for the traditional and digital financial inclusion, respectively, and finally builds up a comprehensive index encompassing all these subcomponents.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The constructed index provides a good chance to measure the level of the adoption of digital financial services in a specific country, and hence provides an instrument for evaluating the policy implications of financial inclusion, especially digital financial inclusion. For example, the subindex provides a chance to evaluate the severeness of the digital divide and the risk of financial exclusion. The indices show wide variations in digital financial inclusion across countries, whether it is mainly driven by a reluctance in constructing more digital financial infrastructure due to financial constraints, or a distrust of digital technology will need further investigation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Overall, this index has great potential for deepening our understanding of the relationships between comprehensive financial inclusion, digital financial inclusion as well as traditional financial inclusion. In this aspect, Khera et al. (&lt;span&gt;2022&lt;/span&gt;) may wish to provide more discussions so that the importance of subindices can be better appreciated. For example, Khera et al.’s Figures 1 and 2 indicate that African countries excel in digital financial inclusion, so it would be insightful to explain which of the access and the usage components are relevant in promoting the development in digital financial inclusion. Another example is Khera et al.’s Figure 3 that contains the interesting finding, namely, for countries with low traditional financial inclusion, the variance of traditional financial inclusion is larger than the variance of countries with high-traditional financial inclusion. This implies that efforts in pursuing digital financial inclusion vary more in countries with low levels of traditional financial inclusion.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some additional empirical evidences may also help to convinc","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"17 2","pages":"231-232"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12387","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82322557","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comments on “Fintech and Financial Inclusion in Southeast Asia and India”","authors":"M. Chatib Basri","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12386","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aepr.12386","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;Morgan (&lt;span&gt;2022&lt;/span&gt;) writes an interesting and valuable survey on fintech and financial inclusion in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and India. This paper is very timely and topical. It provides a good and informative description of the development of financial technology and digital payments in India and ASEAN. This paper also shows how fintech can help promote financial inclusion. Morgan argues that fintech adoption is spreading faster in higher income countries, and, within countries, it is spreading faster among higher income and more highly educated groups. In addition, Morgan points out the potential of digital payments for expanding financial inclusion. The information that Morgan provides is very useful for readers who want to know about the development of fintech in India and ASEAN. Morgan examines differences in the strategies and implementation of financial inclusion and fintech between India and ASEAN and draws lessons and policy recommendations from these findings. This paper also provides a comparative perspective on regulatory developments in several ASEAN countries and India. I agree very much with the author's analyses and findings, however, to enrich and sharpen Morgan's analysis, I suggest several things:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;First, Morgan does discuss general concepts of how fintech can promote financial inclusion, but it would be more interesting for example if he could provide examples or discuss how fintech in India or ASEAN can reduce transaction costs in financial transactions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Second, Morgan points out that despite the rapid growth of alternative finance in recent years, the overall rate of penetration is still small. It will be useful if he could elaborate on the prospects of alternative finance in the future.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Third, one of the objectives of Morgan's paper is to discuss the relationship between financial inclusion and financial stability as well as the various risks that arise from the development of this fintech. However, I found the argument is very general. I think Morgan should be more articulate and more explicit about this so that readers can see this argument clearly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Fourth, on regulatory issue, we understand that digital innovation happens so fast, the production cycle becomes so short. Goods or services made today will become obsolete in a short period of time. So how does the government regulate it? Regulations will tend to lose ground quickly when the new technologies emerge. How can the government make regulations for one industry or one product, if the rules soon become obsolete due to new innovations. Government regulations or laws, I believe, will need to be more general and flexible in the future. The issue is that if the regulations are not explicit, how can they adequately govern them? The conundrum is that while innovation cannot be stifled, it must be protected. What is the best way to draw this line? This is a big issue that might become a potential problem in the future.","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"17 2","pages":"209-210"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12386","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83513588","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comments on “Chinese Fintech Innovation and Regulation”","authors":"Jong-Wha Lee","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12385","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aepr.12385","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;China has shown an impressive development of the fintech industry over the past decade or so. The fintech industry has grown fast in several areas, including mobile payments, online lending, and investment. The progress of the fintech industry has expanded access to financial services to hundreds of millions of people who could not get access to traditional financial institutions. The stunning performance of China's fintech industry has raised interesting questions: what are the key contributing factors to its success?; what is the government's role in supporting fintech development?; and is China's experience applicable to other countries?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chorzempa and Huang (&lt;span&gt;2022&lt;/span&gt;) provide a concise and informative analysis of China's fintech development. It also discusses how policies and regulatory measures have evolved since the advent of fintech and evaluates the government's recent crackdown on big fintech companies. It can be a useful reference for readers who want to understand the main characteristics of China's fintech industry and policy. Nevertheless, I have several comments.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;First, it would be useful if Chorzempa and Huang analyze the main factors of China's fintech development more thoroughly with an empirical framework and data. They argue that China's fintech industry development since 2004 when Alibaba launched the online payment system is attributed to a number of factors including a big market size, a highly repressive financial policy, the rapid development of digital technology, and the relatively friendly approach of the authorities to fintech. To strengthen this main argument, further empirical exercises are recommended. Regarding this, a useful exercise would be to assess, quantitatively with cross-country data, the extent to which each of these key factors has contributed to the adoption and growth of fintech in China much faster than in other countries. Adopting a regression method can be helpful to investigate the role of demand and supply factors in the faster rise of fintech in China. Furthermore, it would be interesting to apply this empirical analysis to China's microdata and examine the determinants of fintech proliferation across regions in China. The Beijing University Digital Finance Inclusion Index of China's Peking University shows that despite a significant expansion of the fintech industry, there are considerable disparities across China's provinces and cities.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Second, it is necessary to carefully evaluate how the recent government crackdown on the fintech giants will affect the whole financial industry and the overall economy in the long term. Chorzempa and Huang (&lt;span&gt;2022&lt;/span&gt;) points out that “change in the policy stance toward the Ant Group affects not just fintech activities, but also the policy enablers that will affect the whole sector.” While fostering innovation, China's lax regulation of the fintech industry in the past has created many risks and loopholes in the financial sys","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"17 2","pages":"293-294"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12385","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87810143","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comment on \"Measuring Digital Financial Inclusion in Emerging Market and Developing Economies: A New Index\"","authors":"Yasuyuki Sawada","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12388","DOIUrl":"10.1111/aepr.12388","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;A recent Asian Development Bank (ADB) report reveals that the global digital sector expansion would allow Asia and the Pacific to generate an economic dividend of more than $1.7 trillion per year, and create 65 million new jobs annually over the next 5 years (Asian Development Bank (ADB), &lt;span&gt;2021&lt;/span&gt;). In the finance sector, accelerated digitalization can potentially close the persistent financial inclusion gap between the rich and the poor, especially in developing countries. To empirically examine digital-based financial inclusion, Khera &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt;. (&lt;span&gt;2022&lt;/span&gt;) develop a novel, comprehensive index of digital financial inclusion for 52 emerging and developing economies for 2014 and 2017. The index is constructed by combining the widely used cross-country data on financial inclusion and related aspects. Essentially, Khera &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt;. determine striking “digital leapfrogging” patterns in financial services. Countries in Asia and the Pacific as well as Africa have increasingly accelerated digital financial inclusion compared to other regions (Kera &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt;.’s Figure 2). In the wake of rapid digitalization, if the index is extended beyond 2020, it will offer valuable information to determine the impact of COVID-19 and identify suitable “build-better” policies for a desirable new normal.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although Khera &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt;. and its database are significant, certain issues remain. First, Khera &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt;. can potentially strengthen the interpretation and analysis of each chart. For example, Khera &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt;. may discuss potential determinants of differentiated trajectories of the nexus between traditional financial and digital financial inclusion, as demonstrated in their Figure 4. While I agree with Khera &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt;. that these diverse patterns could be driven by substitution between traditional and digital financial services, they could have verified whether the upper-left group in their Figure 4 corresponds with an initially low level of traditional financial system.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Second, according to the list of variables employed, the new index seems to miss the popular use of digital financial transactions in the real world. For example, the poor in developing economies are already using mobile phone apps to receive or send money bilaterally, pay for online and offline purchases and transactions, for loan repayments and savings, and mobile phone recharge load.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Third, although the digital divide could drive financial exclusion of the poor, these heterogeneities of digital financial access or use are not considered in the index. The lack of financial and digital literacy could widen the initial digital gap between the rich and the poor. In addition to within-country gaps, digital divide can emerge across countries at an aggregate level, and it will be useful to show, for example, the distribution of the index in Khera &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt;.’s Figure 1 by subregions in Asia.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Fourth, the index may need to directly incorporate","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"17 2","pages":"233-234"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12388","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74369898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}