Your next bank is not necessarily a bank: FinTech expansion and bank branch closures

This paper presents novel evidence on the effect of FinTech expansion on bank branch closures by exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in FinTech expansion generated by the largest FinTech giant in China. We find that FinTech expansion leads to a rise in both the number and share of branch closures. The debranching effects are significant only for those product ranges overlapped between the bank and FinTech company, implying that the bank's presumably advantageous products can, in fact, be replaced by new rivals from FinTech. Our findings provide a window to understand how the global debranching trend occurs.

Automated summary

This paper presents new evidence on the impact of FinTech expansion on bank branch closures by utilizing the plausibly exogenous variation in FinTech expansion generated by the largest FinTech giant in China. The findings show that FinTech expansion leads to an increase in both the number and proportion of bank branch closures. The debranching effects are significant only for product ranges that overlap between the bank and FinTech company, suggesting that the bank's supposed advantage can be replaced by new competitors from the FinTech industry. The results provide insight into the global trend of debranching.