Understanding FinTech start-ups – a taxonomy of consumer-oriented service offerings

TLDR

The financial sector is undergoing radical transformation as digital technologies give rise to FinTech start‑ups in asset management, lending, insurance, yet theoretical insight remains limited and existing studies focus mainly on functional aspects. This study proposes a taxonomy of non‑functional characteristics to better understand the offerings of FinTech start‑ups. The authors limit their analysis to consumer‑oriented FinTech start‑ups and develop a taxonomy comprising 15 dimensions organized around interaction, data, and monetization perspectives. Applying the taxonomy to 227 FinTech start‑ups, they identify archetypes through cluster analysis, thereby enriching descriptive knowledge and providing a structured framework for researchers and practitioners.

Abstract

The financial sector is facing radical transformation. Leveraging digital technologies to offer innovative services, FinTech start-ups are emerging in domains such as asset management, lending, or insurance. Despite increasing investments, the FinTech phenomenon is low on theoretical insights. So far, the offerings of FinTech start-ups have been predominantly investigated from a functional perspective. As a functional perspective does not suffice to fully understand the offerings of FinTech start-ups, we propose a taxonomy of non-functional characteristics. Thereby, we restrict our analysis to consumer-oriented FinTech start-ups. Our taxonomy includes 15 dimensions structured along the perspectives interaction, data, and monetization. We demonstrate the applicability of our taxonomy by classifying the offerings of 227 FinTech start-ups and by identifying archetypes via a cluster analysis. Our taxonomy contributes to the descriptive knowledge on FinTech start-ups, enabling researchers and practitioners to analyze the service offerings of FinTech start-up in a structured manner.