Linkage between FinTech and Traditional Financial Sector in U.S. : Comparative Study during and after Global Financial Crisis

Abstract: Background: In 2008, the financial crisis led to the deterioration of the global economy. The financial industry suffered severe setbacks. On the one hand, regulators strengthened their supervision over financial institutions and raised capital requirements. On the other hand, publics’ confidence in financial institutions declined. At the same time, the fintech industry has rapidly developed during this decade, they use technology to make financial innovation and pose a threat to the traditional financial industry. Purpose: This paper aims to study the linkage between U.S. fintech and the traditional financial sector, trying to figure out which industry's stock price changes will affect the stock price changes in another industry. In particular, it also considers whether the global financial crisis will affect this relationship. Method: We first perform the Granger causality test under the VAR framework for several selected indices sequences, and then use the Toda Yamamoto version of Granger causality approach to verify the reliability of the above tests. Testing is divided into different time intervals in order to detect the impact of financial crisis on the relationship between time series. Conclusion: The empirical analysis results show that the correlation between the index in the long-term and short-term is inconsistent, and also shows that the correlation between the index will be affected by the financial crisis, or say, it will change as time varying.