This pillar of research is led by Priyadarshi Dash and supported by Thankom Arun, Sachin Chaturvedi, Sheri Markose, Victor Murinde, Philip Kostov, and K. J. Joseph.
We need to establish the role of FinTech in promoting cross-border investment. The share of services in global trade is increasing. The same trend is seen in Outward FDI (OFDI) from India; the share of services in total OFDI from India has increased from 38% in 2008 to 48% in 2019. Within services, the share of OFDI originating from banking and financial services has been improving rapidly, from 5% in 2008 to 27% in 2018. But in the case of OFDI to the UK, the share of banking and financial services in total services OFDI has grown much faster, from 4% in 2010 to 43% in 2018. Although FinTech must have played a role in such investments in the banking and financial services sector, the significance of FinTech in enabling cross-border investment has not been adequately captured.
A Grant Thornton and CII report finds that India is an important source of FDI for the UK, especially in the context of Brexit deliberations when investors from other countries are shying away from investing in the UK (Grant Thornton and Confederation of Indian Industry 2019). It points out that two aggregators from India, Oyo, and Ola, invested in the UK in 2018. Payment solutions are an integral part of the operations of these companies. However, to date, the question of FinTech as an enabler of cross-border investment has received little scholarly attention, potentially due to constraints on readily available data.
