Combined Model of Smart Cities and Electronic Payments

Typically, smart city innovations are considered in the field of mobility, energy and built environment whereas the financial dimension is neglected or plays a rather marginal role. This paper goes beyond this classification and analyses explicitly the link between the smart city and electronic payments by looking into the two groups of cases – East Asian, comprised of Singapore and Hong Kong, and Northern European, comprised of Tallinn and Helsinki. The two regions with high level of urban digitalization were selected in order to analyse the level of electronic payments systems in these cities inspired by the research question: can the level of electronic payments be used as a proxy for smart cities? By presenting empirical analysis along these lines of research, the study further argues that incorporating financial services provision – particularly electronic payment systems – into existing concepts of smart city (e.g. proposed by Batty or Giffinger) would help to move from a rather abstract notions of smart economy and smart living towards more concrete technological and policy initiatives.