A FinTech Clustering Framework: Technology, Model, and Stakeholder Perspectives

Pak-Lok Poon; Santoso Wibowo; Sau-Fun Tang

REVIEW 2 major objections 4 minor 15 references

A FinTech Clustering Framework: Technology, Model, and Stakeholder Perspectives

T0 review · 2 major / 4 minor · reviewed 2026-08-12 · deepseek-v4-flash

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Pith's one-line read A three-perspective clustering framework organizes FinTech into technologies, models, and stakeholders.

desk verdict A clear, usable narrative review whose 'interconnected' claim overstates its own diagram; worth engaging for teaching, not for its theoretical novelty. read the letter →

arxiv 2412.05285 v1 pith:PFK6IXWH submitted 2024-11-21 q-fin.GN cs.ET

Pak-Lok Poon , Santoso Wibowo , Sau-Fun Tang This is my paper · ORCID

classification q-fin.GNcs.ET

keywords FinTechfinancialtechnologyclusteringframeworkperspectivebusinessmodelstakeholdernarrativereviewecosystem

verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal

The pith

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

The reading

The paper argues that the many competing definitions of FinTech can be reconciled by viewing FinTech through three interconnected perspectives: enabling technologies, business models, and stakeholders. It proposes a clustering framework in which technologies enable the adoption of FinTech models, and models create opportunities for and impacts on stakeholders. The claim is that this three-lens view gives a more comprehensive and holistic understanding of FinTech than studies that focus on a single aspect. The authors demonstrate the framework by analyzing the Indian lending app FlexiLoans, showing how each perspective reveals different features of the same firm. If the framework is sound, it gives practitioners and researchers a common structure for describing, comparing, and teaching FinTech.

What carries the argument

The central object is the FinTech clustering framework of Figure 1: a three-block diagram with a technology perspective, a model perspective, and a stakeholder perspective, connected by two arrows—technologies enable models, and models create business opportunities for and impacts on stakeholders. The framework is populated by three taxonomies derived from the narrative review: a list of 21 technologies, a catalogue of FinTech models, and a set of six stakeholder types. The machinery works by forcing a holistic analysis: for any FinTech firm, the analyst identifies the underpinning technologies, then the models those technologies make possible, then the stakeholders affected. In the FlexiLoans illustration, technologies such as API, AI and machine learning, data analytics, and cybersecurity are linked to the cash-flow-underwriting and platform-based models, which in turn touch stakeholders from MSME borrowers to Amazon and Truecaller.

What would settle it

Run a systematic literature review with explicit database searches and inclusion criteria on FinTech definitions, models, and technologies. If it surfaces a FinTech model or technology that cannot be assigned to one of the three perspectives, or requires splitting the model perspective, the framework's claim to provide a holistic and comprehensive view is undercut. A lighter check would be to take a portfolio of 50 diverse FinTech firms and see whether each can be classified without stretching any of the categories.

Watch

Extended reading notes

Core claim

On the paper's own terms, the central discovery is a conceptual organization of FinTech, not an empirical finding. After reviewing over 100 academic and practitioner sources, the authors propose that every FinTech innovation can be clustered into three perspectives. The technology perspective lists 21 enabling technologies, including AI and machine learning, big data analytics, blockchain and cryptocurrency, APIs, cloud computing, and others. The model perspective names recurring FinTech models such as payment, digital banking, wealth management, crowdfunding, cash flow underwriting and lending, P2P lending, capital market, and insurance services, plus the emerging platform-based model and decentralized finance. The stakeholder perspective identifies six interacting actors: FinTech start-ups, traditional financial institutions, government, financial customers, technology developers, and Tech Titans. The core claim is that these perspectives are causally linked: technologies enable models, and models create business opportunities for and impacts on stakeholders. The FlexiLoans case study is offered as evidence that a single firm can be systematically described through all three lenses.

Load-bearing premise

The framework's claim to comprehensiveness rests on an informal, snowballing literature search starting from 25 preliminary articles; if that sample is unrepresentative, the lists of technologies and models it yields will be incomplete.

Editorial extensions

If this is right

The framework gives FinTech practitioners a shared vocabulary, so any innovation can be described by its technologies, the model it instantiates, and the stakeholders it affects.
FinTech entrepreneurs must first understand contemporary technologies before they can recognize the business opportunities those technologies make possible, and only then form the corresponding FinTech models.
FinTech models should not be analyzed in isolation: because stakeholders largely determine the success of a model, model analysis should be carried out with respect to relevant stakeholders.
The framework can be applied to any FinTech firm besides FlexiLoans to produce a systematic and holistic profile of the firm and its ecosystem.

Reading between the lines

Editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

The framework could serve as a coding scheme for comparative studies: researchers could use its three taxonomies to compare FinTech firms across countries or sectors and measure which technology-model-stakeholder combinations recur.
Because the framework links technologies to models to stakeholders, it suggests a testable hypothesis: firms whose technologies, models, and stakeholders are internally aligned are more likely to scale or survive than firms with mismatches.
The three perspectives could also inform policy and regulation, for example by mapping which stakeholder types or FinTech models currently fall outside existing financial regulation.
A natural extension is to apply the framework to a larger, diverse sample of FinTech firms and check whether any firm requires more than one model label, which would indicate the framework needs an explicit way to represent hybrid models.

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Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, and a circularity audit.

Desk Editor's Note

read the letter

Dear colleague,

This paper is a narrative review that organizes FinTech definitions and examples into three perspectives—technology, model, stakeholder—and illustrates the framework on FlexiLoans. What it does well: it is clearly written, the case study is concrete, and the taxonomy is sensible for teaching or for practitioners who want a structured way to scan a FinTech firm. I would not call the framework a new scientific result; the three perspectives are already present in the sources it cites (Gomber, Leong & Sung, Lee & Shin). The contribution is the packaging and the worked example.

The soft spots are real but not fatal. The literature search is informal, snowballing from 25 articles the authors themselves published, with no systematic protocol. For a narrative review that is defensible, but it does undercut the claim that the framework is 'comprehensive' or 'holistic.' The authors are honest about this, noting occurrence counts need not reflect popularity.

The bigger issue, which the stress-test note gets right, is internal coherence. Figure 1 shows one-way arrows: technologies enable models, models impact stakeholders. But the text says stakeholders 'determine the activities and effectiveness' of FinTech and 'largely determine the success of a FinTech model.' That is a feedback loop, and the diagram does not show it. The FlexiLoans case study also only goes forward, listing technologies, then models, then stakeholders; it never asks how government regulation or customer behavior shaped the choice of model. So the central 'interconnected' claim is stronger than the actual construction supports. This is fixable: either add feedback edges to the diagram and analyze a case where stakeholder pressure changed the model, or dial the claim back to 'a three-axis classification scheme.' As written, it is a classification scheme with an unsupported adjective.

The paper deserves a serious referee, because the taxonomy is useful and the flaw is repairable. I would suggest the referee ask for the diagram to match the prose, a stronger case study, and a more transparent search description. For my own reading group it is a maybe—good for a discussion about what 'framework' means in this literature.

Recommendation: send to peer review, with the expectation of minor-to-moderate revision.

Referee Report

2 major / 4 minor

Summary. The paper develops a FinTech clustering framework built from three perspectives—technology, model, and stakeholder—as a response to the lack of a consensus definition of FinTech. The framework is derived from a narrative review of 103 academic and practitioner sources, which are used to identify 21 FinTech technologies, describe eight FinTech business models, and enumerate six stakeholder groups. The paper applies the framework to the Indian FinTech firm FlexiLoans.com, classifying the firm's technologies, models, and stakeholders in sequence. The stated central claim is that the three perspectives are 'interconnected' and that the framework thereby provides 'a more comprehensive and holistic view of FinTech.'

Significance. If the framework's claims are accepted, it could serve as a useful organizing device for FinTech teaching, industry analysis, and further research. The paper's strengths include a clearly written overview of the FinTech landscape, a structured comparison of business models with their enabling technologies and value propositions, an illustrative case study, and an honest acknowledgement that the narrative review does not follow a systematic search protocol and that Table 1 occurrence counts may not reflect real-world popularity. The contribution is primarily synthesizing and classificatory rather than empirical or theoretical. The two main liabilities are that the central 'interconnected' claim is not realized in the framework's diagram, and that the evidence base for the 'comprehensive' claim rests on an informal, self-seeded literature search. Both are fixable within the manuscript's scope.

major comments (2)

[A Clustering Framework for FinTech Perspectives, Figure 1] Figure 1 contains only one-way arrows: 'enable' from the technology block to the model block, and 'create business opportunities to & impacts on' from the model block to the stakeholder block. This is a linear pipeline, not an interconnected set of perspectives. However, the text claims reverse influences: the Stakeholder Perspective section (page 4 and page 11) states that stakeholders 'determine the activities and effectiveness of FinTech innovations' and 'largely determine the success of a FinTech model' (Conclusion), and the discussion of government regulation in the Stakeholder Perspective implies that stakeholders shape technology adoption. The FlexiLoans case study similarly lists technologies, then models, then stakeholders, without analyzing any stakeholder-to-technology or stakeholder-to-model feedback. This internal inconsistency directly affects the paper's central claim of an 'interconnected' and 'holistic' framework. The authors should either add feedback or bidirectional arrows to Figure 1 with accompanying explanation of reverse influences, or temper the framework's claim to describe a three-axis classification scheme rather than an interconnected system.
[Study Approach] The paper's evidence base for the comprehensiveness of the framework is an informal search strategy described on page 3: 25 preliminary articles were collected from two prior studies by the same authors (Poon et al., 2024a; 2024b), followed by snowballing through references and online keyword searches. No inclusion or exclusion criteria, databases, search dates, or selection protocol are reported. Because the paper's central claim is that the framework provides a 'more comprehensive and holistic view of FinTech,' the representativeness of this sample is load-bearing. The authors rightly note that Table 1's occurrence counts may not reflect technology popularity, but that caveat does not address whether the technology list and model list are complete. To support the claim, the authors should justify the choice of seed articles, report any additional screening steps, or explicitly narrow the claim from 'comprehensive' to 'illustrative' and discuss the selection limitations in the Conclusion.

minor comments (4)

[Model Perspective (DeFi paragraph)] The word 'cryptocurriences' on page 10 is a typo and should read 'cryptocurrencies.'
[Stakeholder Perspective] The phrase 'Tech Titians' on page 11 should be corrected to 'Tech Titans' to match the terminology used throughout the rest of the paper.
[Technology Perspective, Table 1] Table 1 includes technologies such as API, QR code, and virtual card that are not necessarily 'disruptive' technologies; consider clarifying the inclusion criterion and distinguishing underlying infrastructure technologies from customer-facing technologies in the table or its caption.
[Case Study: FlexiLoans, Model Perspective] The case study states that FlexiLoans.com 'co-created underwriting models with its co-lenders' and adopts both cash-flow underwriting/lending and platform-based models, but it does not explain how these two models interact or how co-lenders influence the technology choices described earlier; a short connecting paragraph would strengthen the illustration.

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged · score 1.0 of 10

No significant circularity: the paper is a narrative-review taxonomy whose categories are the input categories, and its only self-citation is a non-load-bearing search seed.

full rationale

The paper's central product is a FinTech clustering framework built by grouping definitions found in the reviewed literature into three perspectives: technology, model, and stakeholder. This is a synthesis or taxonomy, not a derivation: there are no equations, no fitted parameters, and no prediction that could reduce by construction to an input. Table 1 is explicitly descriptive, with the authors noting that occurrence counts 'may not necessarily reflect the degree of popularity of this technology in FinTech,' and the FlexiLoans case study is an illustration of the framework rather than a test of it. The only self-citation appears in the description of the search strategy: 'A total of 25 FinTech-related “preliminary” articles were initially collected from two FinTech studies (Poon et al., 2024a; 2024b).' This seed set is a starting point for snowballing rather than a load-bearing justification of the framework's content, which is drawn from the broader set of over 100 academic and practitioner references. The framework's claimed 'interconnected' character is weakened by Figure 1 showing only one-way arrows while the text asserts stakeholder influence, but that is an internal-coherence or support problem, not circularity. Accordingly, no circular step is present; at most there is a minor, non-load-bearing self-citation in the search methodology.

Assumptions & free parameters 0 free parameters · 3 assumptions · 0 invented entities

The ledger is empty of free parameters and invented entities because the paper performs no fitting and postulates no new constructs. The framework is a taxonomy of existing concepts. The axioms are the methodological and conceptual assumptions on which the taxonomy's completeness claim rests.

assumptions (3)

domain assumption A narrative review with snowballing and informal keyword searches can produce a comprehensive and holistic FinTech picture.
The paper's central 'holistic' claim rests on this; the method section explicitly chooses narrative over systematic review and uses an informal search (Section 'Study Approach').
domain assumption FinTech can be partitioned exhaustively into technology, model, and stakeholder perspectives.
All definitions in the paper are grouped into exactly these three perspectives (Section 'Different Definitions of FinTech'); the framework inherits this grouping without independent justification.
domain assumption The causal chain 'technology enables model, model impacts stakeholder' holds in general.
Figure 1 and the surrounding text assert this directionality; the paper provides examples but no empirical test.

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Cite this review

Pith. "Pith review of A FinTech Clustering Framework: Technology, Model, and Stakeholder Perspectives." pith.science (2026). https://pith.science/paper/PFK6IXWH

@misc{pith2026241205285,
  author       = {Pith},
  title        = {Pith review of: A FinTech Clustering Framework: Technology, Model, and Stakeholder Perspectives},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://pith.science/paper/PFK6IXWH}},
  note         = {Machine review of arXiv:2412.05285}
}

read the original abstract

Nowadays, the global booming of FinTech can be seen everywhere. FinTech has created innovative disruptions to traditional, long-established financial institutions (e.g., banks and insurance companies) in financial services markets. Despite of its popularity, there are many different definitions of FinTech. This problem occurs because many existing studies only focus on a particular aspect of FinTech without a comprehensive and in-depth analysis. This problem will hinder further development and industrial application of FinTech. In view of this problem, we perform a narrative review involving over 100 relevant studies or reports, with a view to developing a FinTech clustering framework for providing a more comprehensive and holistic view of FinTech. Furthermore, we use an Indian FinTech firm to illustrate how to apply our clustering framework for analysis.

Figures

Figures reproduced from arXiv: 2412.05285 by the authors.

Discussion (0). Continue with ORCID to comment.

Reference graph

Works this paper leans on

15 extracted references · 15 canonical work pages

[1]

narrow” focus and prescribed methods do not allow for “comprehensive

1 A FinTech Clustering Framework: Technology, Model, and Stakeholder Perspectives Pak-Lok Poon a, *, Santoso Wibowo a, Sau-Fun Tang a a School of Engineering and Technology, Central Queensland University, 120 Spencer Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia ABSTRACT Nowadays, the global booming of FinTech can be seen everywhere. FinTech has created innovati...

work page 2005
[2]

In this figure, we argue that technologies (the left block) serve as the underpinning enabler for the adoption and implementation of various FinTech models, ideas, innovations, applications, and businesses (the middle block). For example, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are two main technologies that underpin the development of robo...

work page 2020
[3]

invisible

A clustering framework of FinTech perspectives. create business opportunities to & impacts on enable Technology perspective Model perspective Stakeholder perspective FinTech technologies •FinTech models •FinTech ideas •FinTech innovations •FinTech applications •FinTech businesses •FinTech start-ups (or companies) •Traditional financial institutions •Techn...

work page 2021
[6]

traditional

to enable FinTech companies to launch their innovative services quickly and effectively. In return, the FinTech industry is generating revenue for these technology developers. • Tech Titans increasingly underpin our social, political, and economic worlds by providing the digital infrastructure on which we rely to live our lives (similar to Big Oil and Big...

work page 2019
[7]

Attaran, M. (2023). The impact of 5G on the evolution of intelligent automation & industry digitization. Journal of Ambient Intelligence & Humanized Computing, 14, 5977-5993. Au, Y. A., & Kauffman, R. J. (2008). The economics of mobile payments: Understanding stakeholder issues for an emerging financial technology application. Electronic Commerce Research...

work page 2023
[8]

GDS Link (2024)

London: Palgrave Macmillan. GDS Link (2024). The Rise & Challenges of Cash Flow Underwriting in FinTech. Retrieved from https://www.gdslink.com/the-rise-and-challenges-of-cash-flow-underwriting-in-fintech/ GlobeNewswire (2020). Global Neo & Challenger Bank Market (2020 to

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¾ By Service Type & End-User. Retrieved from https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/ 09/10/2091869/0/en/Global-Neo-and-Challenger-Bank-Market-2020-to-2027-by-Service -Type-and-End-user.html Goldstein, I., Jiang, W., & Karolyi, G. A. (2019). To FinTech & beyond. Review of Financial Studies, 32(5), 1647-1661. Gomber, P., Kauffman, R. J., Parker, C....

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Gray, B., & Purdy, J. (2018). Collaborating for our future: Multistakeholder partnerships for solving complex problems. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haidar, B. (2020). The Role of Big Data in the 2020’s Fintech Revolution. Retrieved from https://fintechmagazine.com/venture-capital/role-big-data-2020s-fintech-revolution 17 Halaweh, M., & Al-Qaisi, H. (...

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Muthukannan, P., Tan, B., Gozman, D., & Johnson, L. (2020). The emergence of a Fintech ecosystem: A case study of the Vizag Fintech Valley in India. Information & Management, 57(8), 103385. Ng, M. (2023). Should Wealth Managers Fear Robo-Advisory? Retrieved from https://fundse...

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The appearance of BigTech, together with digitization and platformization of finance, make the era of so-called FinTech 4.0 (Arner et al., 2022). The stakeholders of BigTech are known as Tech Titans. Examples of these Tech Titans are Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Micros...

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Examples of the technologies that underpin digital banking are open banking API, AI, ML, blockchain, advanced data analytics, and mobile apps (Serheichuk, 2021). Wealth Management Model: Traditionally, banks and wealth managers mainly offer expensive financial products with ve...

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Pith tools

Reviewed August 12, 2026 · model on record in the stance chip above.

[1] [1]

narrow” focus and prescribed methods do not allow for “comprehensive

1 A FinTech Clustering Framework: Technology, Model, and Stakeholder Perspectives Pak-Lok Poon a, *, Santoso Wibowo a, Sau-Fun Tang a a School of Engineering and Technology, Central Queensland University, 120 Spencer Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia ABSTRACT Nowadays, the global booming of FinTech can be seen everywhere. FinTech has created innovati...

work page 2005

[2] [2]

In this figure, we argue that technologies (the left block) serve as the underpinning enabler for the adoption and implementation of various FinTech models, ideas, innovations, applications, and businesses (the middle block). For example, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are two main technologies that underpin the development of robo...

work page 2020

[3] [3]

invisible

A clustering framework of FinTech perspectives. create business opportunities to & impacts on enable Technology perspective Model perspective Stakeholder perspective FinTech technologies •FinTech models •FinTech ideas •FinTech innovations •FinTech applications •FinTech businesses •FinTech start-ups (or companies) •Traditional financial institutions •Techn...

work page 2021

[4] [6]

traditional

to enable FinTech companies to launch their innovative services quickly and effectively. In return, the FinTech industry is generating revenue for these technology developers. • Tech Titans increasingly underpin our social, political, and economic worlds by providing the digital infrastructure on which we rely to live our lives (similar to Big Oil and Big...

work page 2019

[5] [7]

Attaran, M. (2023). The impact of 5G on the evolution of intelligent automation & industry digitization. Journal of Ambient Intelligence & Humanized Computing, 14, 5977-5993. Au, Y. A., & Kauffman, R. J. (2008). The economics of mobile payments: Understanding stakeholder issues for an emerging financial technology application. Electronic Commerce Research...

work page 2023

[6] [8]

GDS Link (2024)

London: Palgrave Macmillan. GDS Link (2024). The Rise & Challenges of Cash Flow Underwriting in FinTech. Retrieved from https://www.gdslink.com/the-rise-and-challenges-of-cash-flow-underwriting-in-fintech/ GlobeNewswire (2020). Global Neo & Challenger Bank Market (2020 to

work page 2024

[7] [9]

¾ By Service Type & End-User. Retrieved from https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/ 09/10/2091869/0/en/Global-Neo-and-Challenger-Bank-Market-2020-to-2027-by-Service -Type-and-End-user.html Goldstein, I., Jiang, W., & Karolyi, G. A. (2019). To FinTech & beyond. Review of Financial Studies, 32(5), 1647-1661. Gomber, P., Kauffman, R. J., Parker, C....

work page 2019

[8] [11]

Gray, B., & Purdy, J. (2018). Collaborating for our future: Multistakeholder partnerships for solving complex problems. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haidar, B. (2020). The Role of Big Data in the 2020’s Fintech Revolution. Retrieved from https://fintechmagazine.com/venture-capital/role-big-data-2020s-fintech-revolution 17 Halaweh, M., & Al-Qaisi, H. (...

work page 2018