Research - FD-Tech Center - Naveen Jindal School of Management

FD-Tech center research at the UT Dallas library

The center will seek to leverage and build upon the expertise of JSOM faculty members to formalize and expand this important stream of research. The center will affiliate faculty within and outside JSOM to produce high-quality research with potential for grant and commercialization opportunities.

The FD-Tech Center builds on the intellectual expertise of the Jindal School to:

Fill gaps in the research at the intersection of finance, digital assets, and information technology, in both existing and novel business models,
Expand research programs in the management of financial and digital asset technologies to establish JSOM as a global leader in this very important future area of research,
Complement university research initiatives to provide value to business and society.

Cognizant of the fact that Fintech and Digital Asset Management are interdisciplinary, we seek to engage researchers in different fields, including but not limited to management information systems, finance, operations management, computer science, and economics. The research center brings applied research in these areas into sharp focus with the objective of addressing the challenges faced by the Fintech ecosystem.

The center activities include the following:

Providing seed funding for interdisciplinary research on Fintech and Digital Asset Management,
Hosting a working paper series,
Leading academic workshops or tracks at major academic conferences to promote research in Fintech,
Hosting annual or bi-annual events that bring together research scholars and industry people to share knowledge and network, and
Creating intellectual properties.

Research Themes

Emerging Paradigms in Technologies and Their Applications in Fintech

Technology: Leveraging information technologies such as AI (ML), blockchain, cloud computing, data analytics and the Internet of Things to innovate the product, process and business models of financial services. Services such as banking, asset management, risk assessment and investing can be significantly altered using new information technologies.
Management: Effectively and strategically manage new information technologies in future financial product creation and distribution. Align regulations, governance mechanisms, contract design and incentive mechanisms regarding the use of data and technologies in the ecosystem.

Digital Asset Management

Develop new economic models of digital assets (e.g., portfolio, pricing)
Study of mechanisms in digital asset management (e.g., governance mechanisms, trading mechanisms, monetization mechanisms, contract design, data cooperatives) to mobilize digital assets and ensure its fair and efficient trading
Study of the IT infrastructure needed to manage digital assets. This may include distributed storage, communication and computing, privacy and security technologies, digital identity, cryptography, symmetric and asymmetric encryption, zero-knowledge proof, multi-signature, digital watermark, data perturbation, ownership verification, data traceability and privacy-preserving techniques, etc.
Investigate the economics of digital assets. This may include the macroeconomic, microeconomic and microscopic implications of digital assets for society, firms and individuals.
Explore new opportunities and business model spawned by digital asset management such as SPAC (special purpose acquisition company), NFT (non-fungible tokens) and yield farming.

Future of Financial Services

Disintermediation and reintermediation
Empowerment, decentralization and democratization of finance (e.g., DeFi)
Transaction cost economics and boundary of financial services
Reduction of information asymmetry and the move from ‘digital divide’ to ‘analytics divide’
Digital economy and token economics (e.g., the role of tokens and digital currencies)