Podcasts
This section contains 35 videos with the members of our Action, describing their scientific interests and outputs. All were recorded by Vasile Strat.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #1 - Daniele Marazzina
The speakers discuss the impact of artificial intelligence and machine learning on the insurance sector. They highlight how AI is being used to enhance customer segmentation, improve predictive models, and innovate new types of insurance contracts. Additionally, they emphasize the growing importance of interpretability in AI models, particularly for regulatory compliance and business transparency, predicting that explainability will be a critical topic in fintech and insurtech in the coming years.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #2 - Audrius Kabašinskas
The discussed research was inspired by a FinTech company that operates a small crypto exchange, which wished to extend its business and address the issue of price discrepancies across exchanges. The researchers helped the company identify arbitrage opportunities using graph theory to analyze crypto exchanges as networks, ultimately developing an "arbitrage ratio" to assess the likelihood of arbitrage occurrences. The company appreciated the findings, as they helped optimize asset allocation across exchanges and identified potentially risky exchanges prone to closure.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #3 - Esra Kabaklarlı
Green fintech combines financial technologies with sustainability goals, aiming to reduce carbon footprints and support the transition to a low-carbon economy. It focuses on the intersection of people, profit, and the planet, using tools like open banking, blockchain, and AI to achieve these goals. Green fintech can help reduce dependence on fossil fuels and support sustainable development, but the concept is still emerging, with ongoing debates about its effectiveness, especially concerning technologies like Bitcoin.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #4 - Belma Ozturkkal
In the discussed research Belma focuses on conducting survey studies in the finance sector, addressing topics like financial literacy and investor behavior. The surveys aim to gather insights on how different financial products, including crypto assets, are perceived across diverse populations and geographic regions. These insights help improve transparency and guide regulatory practices.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #5 - Codruta Mare
In this podcast Codruta describes two main projects linked to the COST Action. The first project, "FinCrime," focuses on building a machine-learning platform to detect the risk of economic and financial crime in a cyber-dominated world, aiming to enhance transparency and public-private cooperation. The second area explores taxpayer perceptions of fiscal systems, using AI and machine learning to evaluate the factors influencing these perceptions, while leveraging the network of COST Action for international collaboration.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #6 - Alessia Paccagnini
Alessia discusses the growing importance of uncertainty in macroeconomics, especially in the context of events like the 2007-2009 recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. She explains that uncertainty is different from volatility and risk, as it represents unpredictability and is forward-looking, while volatility refers to realized changes, and risk involves potential losses. Alessia also highlights key research findings, showing that increases in uncertainty typically lead to recessionary effects, impacting real economic activity through channels such as reduced investment, consumption, and heightened financing costs.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #7 - Esra Kabaklarlı
Esra research underlines the role of fintech in the cashless economy and its contribution to green growth. The project includes two stages: a panel data analysis to examine the relationship between cashless economies and green growth in selected countries and a survey exploring environmental awareness among university students and staff. The results suggest that a cashless economy supports green growth by reducing carbon emissions and promoting digital transactions, while also highlighting the need to increase public awareness of green finance and environmental issues.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #8 - Bashkim Zeqiri
In this video, Bashkim discusses the challenges and opportunities of developing the fintech ecosystem in the Balkans. He highlights the difficulties fintech companies face due to regional disparities in regulations, banking cooperation, and high transaction fees, which impede small businesses and freelancers from participating in the broader digital economy. Despite these challenges, Bashin emphasizes the growth potential of fintech in the region, particularly in fostering faster, cheaper, and more accessible financial services.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #9 - Alessandra Tanda
In this video, Alessandra discusses her research, which focuses on the gender gap in the fintech environment. Her study involves a two-step process: first, assessing the level of knowledge of fintech products and technologies like AI and machine learning among European households, and then evaluating whether increasing transparency can reduce the gender gap in financial decision-making. The findings show that Fintech knowledge is generally low and the differences in knowledge are visible in various aspects.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #10 -Albulena Shala
In this video, Albulena discusses the "Women in Fintech" event organized as part of the COST Action initiative. The competition brought together students from around the world to work on fintech-related projects, with winners selected based on their research and presentations. The event aimed to encourage young researchers, promote data science and Fintech.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #11 - Ioana Coita
In the video Ioana discusses challenges and opportunities in the adoption of AI and blockchain technologies within the financial sector, focusing on the need for AI models to be fair, transparent, and auditable. It highlights the increasing importance of data-driven finance and innovation, especially in blockchain and AI networks. Additionally, the video emphasizes the growing demand for highly skilled employees in fintech, requiring a combination of technical, creative, and communication skills.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #12 - Ioana Coita and Stefana Belbe
FinAI COST Action Podcast #13 - Galena Pisoni
Ioana and Stefana focus on a research project related to evaluating public trust in European institutions and assessing sustainability goals using sentiment and spatial analysis. The researchers discuss their methodology, which involves analyzing public sentiment through survey responses. Additionally, they conduct the spatial analysis to correlate these sentiments with public trust in European institutions across different countries.
Galena discusses the role of business intelligence, particularly in the context of handling big data for decision-making, and how linguistic summaries can help simplify complex data for business managers and other users. The speaker explains how the project focused on applying linguistic summaries to improve business reporting and make data more accessible. The team produced the conference papers and plans to continue with a journal publication while expanding their research and network across Europe.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #14 - Maria Iannario
In the video Maria features a discussion on a project focused on advanced analytics for sustainable finance, addressing data needs, risks, and inequalities related to climate and environmental issues. It highlights the collaborative nature of the project, which involves universities from across Europe and aims to bridge the gap between academia and industry by encouraging young researchers to work with real data. The project has produced several publications and plans to continue with further research, networking, and outreach, including a contest for young researchers.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #15 - Piotr Wójcik
Piotr discusses a project aimed at analyzing the research visibility of members within a COST Action network using bibliometric analysis. The team examined published papers from Action participants to see how well they align with the deliverables related to digital assets, AI stress tests, and failed financial trials. The analysis revealed strengths in some areas, like risk assessment, but also identified research gaps, particularly in AI evaluation, which the team plans to address in future work.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #16 - Barbara BÄ™dowska-Sójka
The video discusses Barbara's experience with a project focused on finance and AI. The project purpose was to study gender disparities in editorial boards of finance journals, revealing that women represent a small portion of editors. The team has produced a paper presented the research at various conferences and built a strong international network for future collaborations.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #17 - Claudiu Vuta, Dragos Atanasiu, Larisa Budaca
The podcast discusses the impact of the economy on businesses, touching upon topics like corporate finance and the role of cryptocurrencies. Several speakers highlight how industries, including logistics and production, adapted to challenges such as lockdowns, focusing on resilience and the importance of maintaining global competitiveness. The conversation also covers perspectives on economic recovery and future strategies in the context of global economic shifts.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #18 - Meryem Duygun
In the video, Meryem discusses her recognition in the fintech industry and the significance of the power list in celebrating women's achievements. She emphasizes the potential of Fintech in providing access to finance, especially for SMEs in developing economies, while also addressing the challenges fintech faces, such as high transaction costs and the need for better regulatory frameworks. Meryem concludes by discussing the gender gap in Fintech, highlighting the underrepresentation of women in leadership roles and advocating for more policies to encourage female participation in the sector.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #19 - Javier Arroyo Gallardo
Javier discusses trends in the use of machine learning in peer-to-peer lending. He highlights the academic focus on predictive models, using machine learning techniques like random forests and neural networks, and emphasizes performance as a key metric. Javier also addresses the gap between academia and industry, particularly the need for more interpretability in machine learning models to meet the requirements of regulators and build trust between businesses and consumers.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #20 - Branka Hadji Misheva
In the video Branka discusses the significant changes in Fintech, and how the integration of new technologies such as machine learning, big data, and cryptography has the potential to disrupt traditional finance. The conversation highlights the emergence of Fintech credit platforms, their benefits like financial inclusion, and associated risks, including reliance on investor confidence and lack of deposit insurance. It touches on the importance of explainable AI models for wider adoption in the financial sector, ensuring transparency and compliance with regulations like GDPR.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #21 - Anca Toma
Anca explores the dramatic rise of Initial Coin Offerings and blockchain technology, attributing their success to the growth of cryptocurrencies, blockchain's decentralized nature, and speculative returns. It also discusses the challenges associated with ICOs, such as regulatory hurdles, fraud risks, and the lack of expertise, which make distinguishing legitimate projects from scams difficult. The speaker emphasizes the importance of sentiment analysis, community involvement, and structured data in identifying successful ICOs, along with the need for stronger regulation and standardization to protect investors.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #22 - Emanuela Raffinetti
In the podcast Emanuela focuses on the economic recovery post-pandemic, highlighting challenges in logistics and production. It also covers the transformative impact of Fintech, blockchain, and cryptocurrencies on various industries. Emphasis is placed on strategic risk management and adapting to digital transformation, particularly in the context of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
FinAI COST Action Podcast #23 - Majid Malaika, Ashraf Khan
In the video Majid and Ashraf discuss the relevance of Fintech and cybersecurity for central banks, emphasizing the growing impact of technology on risk management and the need for central banks to address Fintech-related risks. It highlights the importance of cybersecurity, noting how digitalization increases vulnerabilities, and stresses the need for central banks to adopt proactive, agile approaches to risk management. The speakers also outline future areas of focus, including central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and ongoing efforts to support the financial sector in managing the risks and opportunities brought by emerging technologies.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #24 - Arianna Agosto
In the podcast Arianna discusses the impact of new technologies like AI and blockchain on credit risk management, focusing on the rise of digital lending platforms such as peer-to-peer lending. The speaker explains how network modeling can improve credit risk assessment by analyzing business relationships between companies, particularly when traditional data is scarce. Looking ahead, future research will focus on incorporating alternative data, such as social network or transaction data, to further enhance predictive accuracy in credit risk models for both Fintech and traditional lenders.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #25 - Andres Lehmets
In the video Andres discusses the impact of AI and technology in the financial sector, emphasizing the acceleration of digitalization due to the pandemic and its essential role in business continuity, particularly in insurance and pensions. Andres highlights key trends such as the rise of online channels, new product development, and increased operational efficiency through digital tools, while also addressing emerging risks like cybersecurity and financial exclusion. The discussion also touches on open insurance and blockchain's potential benefits and challenges in the sector, with a call for more stakeholder input to guide future developments.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #26 - Daniel Traian Pele
Daniel discusses the increasing use of technology, particularly blockchain and cryptocurrencies, in the financial sector, driven by the pandemic and growing interest from both central banks and large investors. He emphasizes the long-term significance of blockchain technology in various fields, including finance, while also acknowledging the speculative nature of cryptocurrencies as financial assets. He concludes that although cryptocurrencies are becoming an alternative investment vehicle, they will likely remain on the periphery of mainstream financial markets for the foreseeable future, unless central banks increase their investments and regulation.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #27 - Paolo Pagnottoni
Paolo describes the rise of robo-advisory in wealth management, highlighting its advantages such as low costs, efficiency, and broader financial inclusion, while addressing limitations like increased risk due to reliance on algorithms. Paolo emphasizes the integration of cryptocurrencies into robo-advisory platforms, citing opportunities like high-frequency trading but warning of the risks due to high volatility. He also introduces a network model developed for cryptocurrency portfolio management, showing its potential for hedging risks, and outlines future research directions, including the incorporation of sentiment analysis to enhance decision-making in crypto investments.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #28 - Piotr Wójcik
In the video, Piotr discusses the increasing role of AI in finance, especially during the pandemic, highlighting trends like the growth of cashless payments and the role of fintech in helping SMEs maintain liquidity. He explains his research in text mining and peer-to-peer lending, emphasizing the use of machine learning to predict loan defaults and optimize investment portfolios. Finally, Piotr identifies robo-advisors and cybersecurity as two key areas of AI development in finance, foreseeing significant advances in personalized financial management and data security in the coming years.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #29 - Georgi Penev
In the video, Georgi provides an overview of the fintech landscape in Bulgaria, noting over 100 Fintechs and a significant presence of supporting industries. He highlights the conservative stance of the region's financial sector, which still lags behind in regulatory advancements. He also discusses the challenges and opportunities brought by Brexit and the pandemic, stressing the need for stronger collaboration between the private sector, government, and educational institutions to boost fintech development in the Balkan region.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #30 - Ronald Hochreiter
In this podcast, Ronald discusses the current trends in the integration of AI and technology into the financial sector, noting that many companies still overpromise on AI's capabilities. He highlights the gap between academia and industry in areas like portfolio optimization, where models differ in complexity and real-world application. He also presents his recent paper on a machine learning model for robo-advisory and shares insights on future trends, particularly the importance of explainable AI and data synthesization for finance and regulatory frameworks.
FinAI COST Action Podcast #31 - Jochen Papenbrock
In this podcast, the host invites Jochen to discuss explainable AI. Jochen discusses his research papers, particularly focusing on the importance of explainable AI models for financial institutions. They discuss the future of AI research, stressing the need for trust technologies, algorithmic auditing, and collaboration between academia, Fintechs, regulators, and the financial industry to ensure AI models are trustworthy and explainable.
Central Bank Risk Management, Fintech and Cybersecurity - Part 1
In this presentation, experts discuss the evolving role of central banks in managing Fintech risks, particularly in the context of cybersecurity and digital transformation. The speakers highlighted how central banks are now tackling complex issues beyond traditional monetary policy, including financial stability, fintech innovations like central bank digital currencies, and cyber threats. They stress the importance of understanding national risk profiles, benchmarking digital readiness, and addressing challenges like data privacy, AI biases, and regulatory gaps. Finally, they underscore the rising importance of cybersecurity as digitalization accelerates across financial systems globally.
Central Bank Risk Management, Fintech and Cybersecurity - Part 2
The presentation focuses on various cybersecurity risks in fintech, with examples like Capital One's misconfiguration allowing unauthorized access to sensitive data. Insider threats, both intentional and unintentional, are highlighted, emphasizing the need for different security strategies to handle each. The speakers also discuss central bank risk management, stressing the importance of including cybersecurity measures, improving risk governance, and ensuring that central bank boards and leadership are properly trained to handle evolving fintech and cyber risks.
Central Bank Risk Management, Fintech and Cybersecurity - Part 3
The video focuses on the importance of integrating strategic risk assessments and operational resiliency into central bank fintech projects, particularly those involving CBDCs and cloud computing. It highlights how central banks often overlook cybersecurity measures and operational risks, which can lead to vulnerabilities if not addressed early in project development. Additionally, the speakers emphasize the need for security operations centers, strategic training for board members, and ongoing risk management processes to safeguard against emerging cyber threats in increasingly decentralized and digitalized financial systems.
Central Bank Risk Management, Fintech and Cybersecurity - Part 4
The video discusses the importance of incorporating security controls and scrutiny early in Fintech and CBDC projects to ensure operational resilience and prevent vulnerabilities. It emphasizes that traditional frameworks often delay security integration, which poses risks, especially given the increasing complexity and exposure of modern digital financial systems. The speakers also highlight the importance of involving regulatory bodies early on, addressing evolving technology risks, and ensuring central banks enhance their cybersecurity posture to handle emerging threats effectively.