Fintech Thesis.docx

FinTech and its impact on Retail Sector in Ireland

Dissertation submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Business Administration (MBA) at Dublin Business School

Student Name: Vivek Tuli
 Enrollment Number: 10375577
 Word Count: 20,444


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20th August 2015

Research Supervisor: Dr.Heikki Laiho

Declaration I declare that all the work in this dissertation is entirely my own, unless referenced in the body of the text indicating the source. Bibliography gives the full reference of the source consulted and used in the dissertation. Further, I declare that no portion of the dissertation has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification in any other university or institute of learning.

Date: 2nd September, 2018

Name: Vivek Tuli

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Acknowledgement I would first like to thank my thesis advisor Dr. Heikki Laiho of the Dublin Business School. He consistently allowed this paper to be my own work, but steered me in the right the direction whenever he thought I needed it. I would also like to thank the experts who were involved in the validation survey for this research project: Mr Tahir – Manager - Topaz Mr Eion – Manager - Lidl Ms Geraldine – Owner – Cost Cutter Without their passionate participation and input, the validation of the interviews could not have been successfully conducted. Finally I would like to say thanks to both my family and friends for all their support over the past few years and in particular the last year. Your encouragement and emotional support has been essential to achieving my goal. Words cannot describe how grateful I am to you all.

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Abstract The world is witnessing a histrionic transformation with the technology advancements in our everyday lives. Each one of us has been influenced by the advanced technology in varied ways. The retail sector is not any different and for last few decades, the retails sector has seen various reforms in regulations and the transformation of how traditionally retailers used to interact with their customers. Part of this reform has come back from the advances in money technology or because the new ambiguous word of FinTech as it’s currently far-famed. FinTech is already revolutionizing the business as many new start-ups style new innovative money product and services for purchasers. These new entrants area unit difficult the standard money services model or framework. The analysis is to seem any into the Irish retail business and gain a way bigger insight into wherever the business is currently and wherever it’s moving into the longer term. The thesis can aim get an understanding and develop any knowledgeable insight into FinTech and its have an effect on that it’s having on the money services business. At the start of the paper the investigator can analyze tutorial books, journals, newspaper articles and company business papers created by business specialists. The analysis may be a quantitative and qualitative study that concerned 3 interviews from business specialists inside the retail business and a hundred and ten respondents of the survey to know the client centrical viewpoint with regards to FinTech and its impact on retail. These interviews can give direct insight with an outline of the money services business 4

presently. To analyse what impact FinTech has already had on the business and goes to possess in future. one amongst the key objectives is to know whether or not FinTech can disrupt the retail sector here in Ireland or can it collaborate with the prevailing suppliers.

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Table of Contents 1.

Introduction ................................................................................................................... 8 1.1. Background to the research problem ...................................................................................8 1.2. Justification of research.......................................................................................................9 1.2.1. Academic Justification........................................................................................................... 9 1.2.2. Industrial Justification ......................................................................................................... 10 1.3. Research Question ............................................................................................................ 10 1.4. Roadmap to Dissertation ................................................................................................... 10 1.4.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 10 1.4.2. Literature Review ................................................................................................................ 10 1.4.3. Research Methodology ....................................................................................................... 11 1.4.4. Data Findings and Analysis .................................................................................................. 11 1.4.5. Conclusion and Recommendations..................................................................................... 11 1.4.6. Self Reflections .................................................................................................................... 11 1.5. Scope and Limitations ....................................................................................................... 11

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Literature Review ......................................................................................................... 13 2.1. What is the Retail Industry?............................................................................................... 13 2.1.1. History of the Retail Industry? ............................................................................................ 13 2.1.2. Irish Retail Industry at Glance ............................................................................................. 14 2.1.3. Ireland’s Retail Industry and Its Future ............................................................................... 15 2.2. Fintech .............................................................................................................................. 15 2.2.1. What is Fintech?.................................................................................................................. 15 2.3. History of Fintech .............................................................................................................. 18 2.4. Fintech and its Components .............................................................................................. 20 2.4.1. Asset Management ............................................................................................................. 20 2.4.2. Bank Technology ................................................................................................................. 21 2.4.3. Crowdfunding...................................................................................................................... 22 2.4.4. Cryptocurrency.................................................................................................................... 22 2.4.5. Information Portal............................................................................................................... 23 2.4.6. Investment Management ................................................................................................... 24 2.4.7. Machine Intelligence ........................................................................................................... 24 2.4.8. Marketplace Lending .......................................................................................................... 25 2.4.9. Money Management .......................................................................................................... 26 2.4.10. Payments................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.4.11. Private Markets ...................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.4.12. Real Estate.............................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.4.13. Trading ................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. 2.5. Impact of Fintech on Retail Banking ................................................................................... 27 2.6. How Fintech Impacts Purchasing Behavior of Customers .................................................... 28 2.7. How Fintech is changing the payment method ................................................................... 29 2.7.1. Mobile wallet ...................................................................................................................... 29 2.7.2. Cryptocurrency.................................................................................................................... 29 2.8. Literature Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 30

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Research Methodology ................................................................................................. 33 6

3.1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 33 3.2. Research Problem ............................................................................................................. 33 3.3. Research Objectives .......................................................................................................... 34 3.4. Research Methodology & Structure ................................................................................... 35 3.4.1. Research Philosophy ........................................................................................................... 35 3.4.2. Research Approach ............................................................................................................. 36 3.4.3. Research Strategy ............................................................................................................... 36 3.4.4. Research Choice .................................................................................................................. 37 3.4.5. Time Horizon ....................................................................................................................... 37 3.4.6. Data Collection .................................................................................................................... 38 3.4.7. Sample................................................................................................................................. 38 3.4.8. Analysing data collected ..................................................................................................... 39 3.5. Research Ethics ................................................................................................................. 39 3.6. Research Limitations ......................................................................................................... 40

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Data Findings and Analysis ............................................................................................ 41 4.1. Introduction ..............................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. 4.2. Research Findings......................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined. 4.2.1. Survey Findings ...................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. 4.2.2. Interview Findings .................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

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Conclusion and Recommendations ............................................................................... 57 5.1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 57 5.2. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 57 5.3. Recommendations for further research ............................................................................. 58 5.3.1. Further Academic Research ................................................................................................ 58 5.3.2. Further Industry Research Prospects .................................................................................. 59

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Reflections ................................................................................................................... 62

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Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 68

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Appendices ................................................................................................................... 71 8.1. 8.2.

Survey Questionnaire ........................................................................................................ 71 Interview Questionnaire .................................................................................................... 76

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1. Introduction This is the first and foremost chapter of the dissertation which is also a quick snapshot of the whole report. The introduction focuses on the background of the research topic / problem and also elaborates the academic justification of the research study: “Fintech and its impact on Irish Retail Sector”. The chapter also looks into the research topic from industrial point of view and how this specific study will help the Irish retail sector in dealing with Fintech.

1.1. Background to the research problem Over the decades, the technology has been improving gradually. We are all conscious of the exponential rate within which technology has mature and flourished over the past decade. The evolution from web to a way quicker service in broadband, the introduction of sensible phones and devices has taken the globe by storm. The digital revolution can still drive forward round the world, as well, as inside the money services trade technology is on the increase and sweeping through the trade sort of a cyclone. money technology that is currently referred to as FinTech is ever-changing the normal money services model across the world. This analysis report has examined the impact of quick ever-changing money Technology (FinTech) on our Retail trade here in eire with context to gift and future things. FinTech is simply the ubiquitous word applied to technology in the financial services industry. Innovating and fast growing financial technology is attracting more and more people. People are using more of fintech in their daily life. Consumers nowadays prefer using more of fintech payment modes. As mentioned in Investopedia (2018), “Fintech is a portmanteau of financial technology that describes an

emerging financial services sector in the 21st century. Originally, the term applied to technology applied to the back-end of established consumer and trade financial institutions. Since the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the term has expanded to include any technological innovation in the financial sector, including innovations in financial literacy and education, retail banking, investment and even cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.” The word financial technology can be applied to any innovation in terms of how people transact business, from the invention of digital money to double-entry bookkeeping. Fintech which was originally used for computer technology with context to back-end work of offices and trading firms, is now being used for various technological interventions within the domain of commercial and personal finance. According to EY's Fintech Adoption Index, “1/3rd of consumers utilize at least two or more fintech services and those consumers are also increasingly aware of fintech as a part of their daily lives.”

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The Fintech Landscape (Investopedia, 2018) The startups associated with Fintech have received approximately $17.4 billion of funding in 2016 and were on pace to surpass that sum as of late 2017, according to CB Insights. The CB Insights have counted 26 fintech unicorns globally which cumulatively values around $83.8 billion. According to CB Insights report, North American has the most number of the fintech startups, with Asian countries following. Some of the most active areas of fintech innovation include or revolve around the following: 

Cryptocurrency and digital cash

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Blockchain Technology: Is a distributed ledger technology (DLT) that maintains records on a network of computers, without having any central ledger.

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Smart contracts: Utilizes computer programs to automatically execute contracts between buyers and sellers.

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Open banking: A concept that leans on the blockchain and posits that third-parties should have access to bank data to build applications that create a connected network of financial institutions and third-party providers.

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Insurtech: Seeks to use technology to simplify and streamline the insurance industry.

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Regtech: Seeks to help financial service firms meet industry compliance rules.

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Robo-advisors: Utilizes algorithms to automate investment advice to lower its cost and increase accessibility.

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Unbanked/underbanked: Services that seek to serve disadvantaged or low-income individuals

1.2. Justification of research This research study proposes to understand the “Impact of Fintech on Irish Retail Sector” to understand the growth prospects of the FinTech within the retail domain of Irish Marketplaces. Since the gradual developments in technology specifically in Financial Sector over last decade has taken place, the researcher intended this study to understand the effect of the innovative technology within financial services on the Irish Retail Sector. As mentioned above, the FinTech companies are growing rapidly in the North American and Asian continents of the world, thus it becomes essential for the rest of the world to understand its impact on their market and thus this study has been conducted.

1.2.1. Academic Justification There has been many researches conducted in the Financial Services sector although there is lack of research in the filed of Fintech with regards to Irish Retail Market. This research study will provide a base for the future researchers to understand the FinTech and its impact on the retail sector. With a specific

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focus on Irish Retail Sector, this study will enhance the domain understanding and the technological effect on the same for future researchers.

1.2.2. Industrial Justification The Irish Retail Sector is growing at a rapid pace and so is the Financial Technology Sector, this research study will help the industry people to understand the growing impact of the latter on the former. The research would offer an insight to the Irish Retail Sector as to how and to what extent FinTech impacts the domain. Research would also bring out the future prospects of FinTech within the Irish retail sector. The research would also highlight the difference in consumer buying behaviour after the introduction of FinTech in retail sector.

1.3. Research Question “What impact will FinTech have on the retail services industry in Ireland”? The basic objective of this research is to understand the Impact Fintech has / will have on the Irish Retail Sector. This study will focus on the knowledge and expertise of industry experts along with the study of political viewpoint of the study area. Although, it is very obvious that technology has a great impact on the world with the evolution of financial technology impacting financial services across the globe to a great extent. This deductive research study will focus on the qualitative and quantitative research to gain an indepth insight from retailers and individuals working in the retail sector of Irish Market. This research should offer an overview that highlights the issues retail sector and consumers will face and help prevent such issues hampering their future growth.

1.4. Roadmap to Dissertation 1.4.1. Introduction This is the first chapter of the dissertation report. The chapter puts together a crisp outline of the background of the research study along with its academic and industrial justification. The roadmap to dissertation, which highlights the contents of all the chapters included in the study report. The expected scope and limitations with regards to the study of Impact of FinTech in Irish Retail Sector are also described in the chapter.

1.4.2. Literature Review The second chapter of the report focusses on the literature review which highlights the importance of the literature review for the purpose of the research which is further followed by the critical discussion of the

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various academic and industrial research studies, concepts and theories relevant to the research topic “Impact of FinTech on Irish Retail Sector”.

1.4.3. Research Methodology The third chapter talks about the research methodology selected by the researcher for the study of “Impact of FinTech on Irish Retail Sector”. For in-depth study and understanding of the methodology, the research study has been focused on the ‘Research Onion’ by Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2012). The methodology chapter would focus on the theory and usage of the all layers of the ‘Research Onion’ to understand the in-detail research methodology being adopted for the study.

1.4.4. Data Findings and Analysis The chapter of Data findings and analysis states the analysis and the findings of the data collected through primary and secondary research, which in this research study is interviews and surveys through questionnaires. In this chapter, the researcher only mentions the various findings and does not discuss them in detail.

1.4.5. Conclusion and Recommendations The conclusions and recommendations chapter discusses in detail the major findings mentioned in previous chapter – Data Findings and Analysis; thereby correlating them to the research objectives stated in the research methodology chapter. The Conclusion and Recommendations chapter also highlights the recommendations in context to results obtained and suggestions for the future studies to be conducted.

1.4.6. Self Reflections The final chapter of the research report highlights the researcher’s learnings and self reflections while conducting the research study. The learning evaluation talked about in this chapter is based on the continuous learning of the researcher while conducting this study and the masters program.

1.5. Scope and Limitations This research study has been conducted with a major focus of understanding the impact of financial technology on Irish retail sector. For the same, the scope of the research study is to understand the FInTech and its growing usage in Irish Retail Sector with the effect of same on former. To achieve the above said scope, there were interviews conducted with various individuals working in Irish Retail Sector along with the surveys conducted. The individuals selected for the interviews were random, the interviews 11

were conducted through telephonic conversations after which they were transcripted. Apart from interviews and surveys, the secondary data was collected from books, journals and earlier research articles.

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2. Literature Review 2.1. What is the Retail Industry? According to Cambridge English Dictionary, Retail Industry comprises of number of organizations offering products and services through the stores set up or through online portals to the claimed purchasers in the economy. Retail Sector can be categorised into various segments like (The Industry Handbook: The Retailing Industry, 2004): 

General Retailers

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Departmental Stores

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Speciality Stores

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Online Stores

Within Ireland the retail sector has around 40,000 retail businesses of which mostly are Irish-owned (Admin & Department of Business Enterprise and Innovation).

2.1.1. History of the Retail Industry? The retail industry is an essential part and parcel of modern day’s mankind living. Sellers have always been an integral part of every society and every time period, be it was the barter system time period or today’s time period of technically advanced sales and customer services. The current retail industry is completely dependent on money and finance. However, in ancient times it was trading that used to be focus of retail industry, since there was no currency. During 9000 – 6000 BC, the barter system (exchange system) was the most common practice of trading, wherein cattle and animals were exchanges for goods. The year 1883 witnessed the first cash register, an invention by James Ritty. The modern day departmental stores began to show up during 1796, and the year was marked as the transition period of general stores and mom-pop shops to departmental stores (A history of department store, no date). The year 1920 was the onset of plastic cards: be it credit cards or charge cards and these offered conveniences to customers and prevented them to travel to bank to withdraw cash for shopping (Buy Now, Pay Later: A History of the Credit Card, no date). The first Wal-Mart, the big box retail followed by Kmart and Target were open in the 1960’s (The Past And Future Of America’s Biggest Retailers, no date). Online shopping is born in 1994, Pizza Hut was the first to accept online-orders (Grothaus and Grothaus, 2015). In 1995, Amazon the eCom

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pioneer was established and sold its first book (‘The History of E-Commerce, Online Shopping Evolution, and Buyers Behaviour’, no date).

2.1.2. Irish Retail Industry at Glance

Retail is Ireland's largest industry and largest private sector employer, with a presence in every city, town and village - right across the country (www.retailireland.ie)      

Employment through retail sector – 285,000 people Outside Dublin employees – 72% Businesses operational – 37,400 Less than 10 workers – 85% businesses Revenue Generation – 23% of total tax receipts Tax Revenue – Over €7 billion

The Irish retail industry comprises of small, family owned, indigenous companies  

Active wholesale and retail businesses in every community – 37,400 More than 250 employees – 50%

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2.1.3. Ireland’s Retail Industry and Its Future

As mentioned in above statistics, retail is the major industry within Ireland. Change has been found in the most recent decades in the Irish retail viewpoint. Change because of increment in rivalry, changes in buyer practices, developing client desires, advancement in innovation. Different elements like Brexit will put representative new difficulties in not so distant future. Decrease in the benefit of sterling have officially affected the part's execution, in like manner on propensity of retailers of Ireland. Albeit Irish retailers are hopeful about the future, parcels goal-oriented for advancement, intending to put and exhausting their business in coming years. (Molding the Future of Irish Retail 2020 | Retail Ireland, no date)

2.2.

Fintech

2.2.1. What is Fintech?

The word FinTech was coined after the perfect amalgamation of financial services and technology based solutions for financial sector (Nicoletti, 2007). As per the Oxford Dictionary definition FinTech is “Computer programs and other technology which is used to support and enable banking & financial services”. As mentioned by Arner, Barberis and Buckley (2015), the service industry has always been dominated by the traditional financial institutions, however gradual move towards digitalisation and interlinkage is possible in coming future. This sensation of levied bond between finance and technology is best known as “Fintech” or “Financial Technology”. Financial products and services made with digital and innovative solutions in finance for the end-users i.e. consumers are fintech (Chuen, Swee and Jinrui, 2015). The modern age financial services combined with the advanced information technology architecture for customers is offering an all new experience of carrying out financial transactions through various channels viz, mobile banking, e-banking, internet banking, blockchain technologies, digital signature solutions and real-time payment systems. These innovative financial services include ATM, EFTPOS, SWIFT, EDI, BitCoins and Direct-Debit that internetwork transfers and payment services (Jarunee Wonglimpiyarat, 2017). The traditional financial market and financial transactions has been challenged by the rise of ‘Bitcoin’, as it opened the possibilities to carry out financial settlements with no a transaction fee or regulations (EY Fintech: Are banks responding appropriately? - EY - China, 2015).

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Year 1967 was the Beginning in the onset of financial technology with the launch of the automated teller machine. A big movement towards digital industry from analogue in financial services tool place from 1967 through 1987. Establishment of the Society of Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) in 1973 was the first greatest phenomenon towards the internationalisation of the payment services(Swift History, no date). In 2009, Paul Volcker(former chairperson, US Federal Reserve) said “The most important financial innovation that I have seen the past 20 years is the automatic teller machine, that really helps people and prevents visits to the bank and it is a real convenience”(Paul Volcker, 2009). In Fintech history, MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. were the two of the largest IPOs. Both MasterCard and Visa, process payments on debit and credit cards on proprietary payment networks (Wilson, 2017). Being after the Global Financial Crisis, financial industry has been reshaping gradually with financial technology and will reshape future of the financial services. In the field of payments, investing and lending, financial technology is enabling new firms, such as start-ups and TechBanks to supply attractive alternatives for the public. The aftermath of the Global Financial crises offered ascend to exponential development of FinTech start-ups and other non-bank contenders(Jakšič and Marinč, 2015). Fintech contributed in new development of the global financial sector and provided many advancements to resolve the obstacles and problems that clients generally faces in their financial transactions. Retail financial services are being more digitised through payment apps, e-wallets, online lending platforms and these fintech services are quickly gaining customers. Unbanked populations can make purchases and keep their money through payment apps and secure mobile wallets without worrying to carry and store large amount of cash (Desai, 2015). Freedman in his book – 'Prologue to Financial Technology' (2006) talks about the Financial Technology in - profundity. Freedman portrays the term Financial Technology as a framework that fabricates model, cost and procedures various money related item like securities, stocks, contracts and money. The creator more epitomizes on anyway the financial item credit, esteem and time. The creator also investigations anyway the national economy incorporates looking for and showcasing of item in market at totally unique occasions available corporate greed frameworks and advances. money related Technology includes secure correspondence to others in an extremely advertise through regular dialect with a quick conveyance of learning and news which may be open or privates and this is frequently done through a correspondence organize. financial Technology incorporates corporate greed innovation simply like that of business frameworks. corporate greed incorporates numerous activities such unloading, arranging, purchasing, offering, obtaining, renting, facilitating, managing and so forth.

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Over recent years, the world venture inside the money related innovation has been amazing. Accenture the world administration industry and innovation powerhouse, printed a paper, "The Rise of FinTech". In paper, the innovation powerhouse – Accenture talks about this new period of open PC code and distributed computing has opened the market diminishing the hindrances and allowing new contestants inside the money related innovation division. This advancement has constrained the fluctuated fiscal foundations like banks to bring down costs and drive development openings that wound up potential through computerized transformation. As made reference to by Gach, R and Gotsch, M, Accenture, 2014) the Fintech Innovation working environment in New York helps various FinTech business visionaries to figure on the latest developments and has seen a development of $76 million with another organization being non heritable for $175 million. New York's FinTech advertise has seen the extension at twofold rate contrasted with the Silicon Valley. In last 4-5 years, there has been overall interests in FinTech that have old fashioned endeavor ventures about by fourfold. Relatively 83% of this world speculation is being vested by the US all through 2013 that afresh raised to $1 billion inside the 2014's half-moon. money related Times reports "The aggregate amount contributed with inside the world FinTech area ascended from basically over $4bn in 2013 to very $12bn a year ago". (Arnold, Martin 2015, financial Times Online)

The financial Times (Arnold, Martin 2015, Irish Times Online) additionally reports that $3.5 Billion was invested with into KKR additionally referred to as Kickstarter. Kickstarter ar a donation based mostly crowd funding company whom facilitate entrepreneurs fund a project or venture by raising cash for big teams

Rising Global Fintech Investment

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of individuals primarily over the net. The linear unit additionally illustrates that there was $865 million raised by the loaning club on the the big apple exchange. Forbes on-line reports however The loaning Club that involves peer to see loaning has issued over $1 Billion in loans and that they ar the clear leader within the market. Peer to see loaning like crowd funding is Associate in Nursing innovative monetary technology providing credit at abundant lower rate than the normal banks. (Caldbeck, Ryan Forbes, on-line 2012) As per the graph above, the global investment within FinTech has been witnessing gradual rise since last 4-5 years. This continuous development indicates the future prospects of the FinTech across the globe. Also, as mentioned by Accenture in its report, there has been limited barriers to the sector which has allowed various new entrants enabling the expansion of the sector and leading to new innovations in the Financial Technology segment.

2.3. History of Fintech For decades, Finance, Strategy and Technology have always been tightly interwoven. One such combination first came into existence in 1967 in the form ATMs (Automated Teller Machines) which became a significant factor in consumer banking. Recently, in response to growing internet and customer shifting towards mobile platforms, almost all financial institutions and insurance companies have moved their strategies and commitments. In 2008, when financial sector crashed, a huge convergence of events projected that FinTech would be a new promising industry. After the crash, during recovery times, the financial sector was faced with a charge of implementing Dodd-Frank Act which has great regulations to prevent further such crash in future however, leading to around 9 million people unemployed in the financial sector. Along with disruption and regulation, however, this era saw the ubiquity and the utility of smartphones among consumers. The FinTech start-ups began to show up in order to address the growing demand for mobile and ecommerce apps and offering higher security as well as small and micro business financing and services. The time period witnessed the emergence of Square – Micro-mobile payment company founded in 2009, Kickstarter – crowdfunding company founded in 2009 and SoFi – online personal loan company founded in 2011. Bitcoin and Blockchain came into existence in 2008. Because of legacy technology and massive regulatory burdens, incumbent institutions could not move fast enough to keep up with these young upstarts, and a whole generation of newly invented financial, banking, and insurance solutions were created all over the world. The large institutions did not sit back and watch all of this happen, however.

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Instead, they bought start-ups, funded new innovations, and developed their own technologies. The battle between existing players and newcomers is ongoing. For incumbent institutions, small businesses, and consumers alike, the capabilities of many of the latest FinTech innovations have justified the excitement and massive investment. New technology, like Blockchain or distributed ledger, promises virtually un-hackable transactions to create secure commerce and record-keeping like never before seen. With FinTech the ‘Gig Economy’ is possible and offers easy and available services to the workforce by offering services like micro- funding, mobile billing and payments and personalized insurance. The Gig Economy is a flexible, distributed, often self-employed model of working economy, something like Uber. Consumers have celebrated the convenience and ease by which payments can be made and received with technologies like Apple Pay and Google Wallet. Around 1.2 billion unbanked people across the globe has been affected by the growth of FinTech. The advanced and revolutionary technology has enabled them to be a part of the global economy by enabling them to buy, sell, send / receive money with no physical bank involvement by simply using a mobile phone and cellular network. FinTech can be categorised into two segments – Cooperative and Disruptive. The Cooperative FinTech is based on the principle of working with existing financial institutions to make it more user friendly (Online Banking, Mobile Banking). On the other hand, Disruptive FinTech work separately and have changed the concept of finance altogether. This is majorly to introduce new ways and techniques of transacting with money, viz., crowdfunding. The FinTech industry is also segmented by the business processes it offers (e.g. deposit accounts, payments, lending, wealth management or investing, insurance, markets, and back office operations) and the customer segment it serves (e.g. retail banking, insurance, and corporate banking). This Financial Technological revolution has been backed and driven by the educated, experienced, and imaginative young entrepreneurs and finance industry greats, who were displaced after the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. (bitcoinist.net) In this arena lies an incredible opportunity for business and technology students, faculty, and universities to equip the next generation of FinTech architects and innovators. Over the last two years, universities have recognized this fact and begun developing programs, courses, and groups to support FinTech innovation and education. This sector, if developed properly by universities, has the potential to offer exciting career and advancement opportunities for an entire generation of business and technology students. Both universities with business schools and students who 19

fail to recognize the vast opportunity may be left behind. A Well-Capitalized Industry The private sector has certainly acknowledged the promise and the growing importance of FinTech by heavily investing in it through venture capital, private equity, direct corporate investments, and public offerings. In fact, investments have risen exponentially from $4.05 billion in 2013, to $12.21 billion in 2014, and $22.3 billion in 2015. In addition to this plethora of financial resources, investment dollars, and venture capital, however, being funneled companies are channeling their foci and pouring vast amounts of other resources into the sector. For example, incumbent institutions such as JP Morgan Chase have an internal incubation lab to develop Blockchain technologies. Also, a consortium comprising more than sixty financial institutions has formed and is targeting financial and human resources towards developing the next generation of Blockchain technology for the finance and banking sectors. The 225-year old State Street Bank recently launched a Blockchain R&D facility in Ireland, inviting university students to conduct research into new banking technologies. (Tapscott, 2016) Additionally, there are countless entrepreneurs and innumerable start-ups that are developing financial technology and solutions to disrupt the way business is done.

2.4. Fintech and its Components FinTech can be bifurcated into various segments like (www.investopedia.com):

2.4.1. Asset Management Asset management is the course of a customer's money and securities by a budgetary administrations organization, more often than not an investment bank. The establishment offers venture benefits alongside an extensive variety of customary and elective item contributions that probably won't be accessible to the normal financial specialist. The record is held by a money related foundation and incorporates checking composing benefits, Mastercards, charge cards, margin credits, the programmed range of money adjusts into a money market fund and business administrations.

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Resource administration requires speculation essentials, which implies this administration for the most part confine records to high total assets people, government substances, companies and financial middle people. This incorporates such items as value, settled pay, land, wares and worldwide speculations.

At the point when people store cash into the record, it is set into a money showcase fund that offers a more noteworthy restore that can be found in normal reserve funds and financial records. Record holders can pick between Federal Deposit Insurance Company-backed (FDIC) reserves and non-FDIC reserves. The additional advantage to account holders is the majority of their keeping money and contributing needs can be adjusted by a similar foundation as opposed to having separate investment fund and managing an account choice.

These kinds of records came about because of the death of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999, which supplanted the Glass-Steagall Act. The Glass-Steagall Act was made amid the Great Depression and did not enable monetary establishments to offer both saving money and security administrations.

2.4.2. Bank Technology The saving money industry is encountering interruption at an expanding pace. In the course of recent years, conventional money related organizations and non-customary fintech firms have started to comprehend that cooperation might be the best way to long haul development. In the meantime, enormous tech firms are putting forth monetary administrations, making techfin arrangements. The basis for cooperation is the capacity to bring qualities of the two banks and fintech firms together to make a more grounded substance than either unit could expedite their own. For most fintech associations, the essential focal points are an advancement attitude, dexterity (speed to alter), shopper driven viewpoint, and a framework worked for computerized. These are points of interest that most heritage budgetary organizations don't have. Then again, most keeping money foundations have scale, a more grounded brand acknowledgment and set up trust. They additionally have sufficient capital, learning of administrative consistence and a built up dissemination organize.

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As indicated by the World Fintech Report 2018 from CapGemini and LinkedIn, in cooperation with Efma, "Most fruitful fintech firms have concentrated on tight capacities or sections with high erosion levels or those underserved by customary money related foundations, yet have attempted to productively scale without anyone else. Customary money related organizations have a huge client base and profound pockets, however with inheritance frameworks keeping them down." The test will be the capacity to set up a domain where coordinated effort can thrive rather than smothering the recipient characteristics of either accomplice.

2.4.3. Crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the utilization of little measures of capital from an extensive number of people to fund another business adventure. Crowdfunding makes utilization of the simple availability of immense systems of individuals through social media and crowdfunding sites to unite financial specialists and business visionaries, and has the potential to build enterprise by growing the pool of speculators from whom assets can be raised past the conventional hover of proprietors, relatives and venture industrialists.

In the United States, crowdfunding is limited by directions on who is allowed to fund a new business and the amount they are permitted to contribute. Like the limitations on hedge fund investing, these controls should shield unsophisticated or non-rich financial specialists from putting excessively of their investment funds in danger. Since such a large number of new organizations fizzle, their financial specialists confront a high danger of losing their primary.

Crowdfunding has made the open door for business visionaries to raise several thousands or a large number of dollars from anybody with cash to invest. Crowdfunding furnishes a discussion to anybody with a plan to contribute it front of holding up speculators. One of the all the more entertaining tasks to get financing was from a person who needed to make another potato plate of mixed greens formula. His gathering pledges objective was $10, yet he raised more $55,000 from 6,911 supporters. Financial specialists can choose from many ventures and contribute as meager as $10. Crowdfunding destinations produce income from a level of the assets raised.

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2.4.4. Cryptocurrency A cryptographic money is an advanced or virtual cash intended to function as a mode of trade. It utilizes cryptography to anchor and check exchanges and additionally to control the making of new units of a specific digital currency. Basically, cryptographic forms of money are restricted passages in a database that nobody can change except if particular conditions are satisfied.

There have been numerous endeavors at making a computerized money amid the 90s tech blast, with frameworks like Flooz, Beenz and DigiCash rising available however definitely falling flat. There were a wide range of purposes behind their disappointments, for example, misrepresentation, money related issues and even gratings between organizations' workers and their supervisors.

Outstandingly, those frameworks used a Trusted Third Party approach, implying that the organizations behind them confirmed and encouraged the exchanges. Because of the disappointments of these organizations, the production of a computerized money framework was viewed as an acts of futility for quite a while.

At that point, in mid 2009, a mysterious software engineer or a gathering of developers under an alias Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin. Satoshi portrayed it as a 'distributed electronic money framework.' It is totally decentralized, which means there are no servers included and no focal controlling specialist. The idea nearly takes after distributed systems for document sharing.

2.4.5. Information Portal For in excess of an age currently, banks far and wide have been producing associations with money related innovation organizations, endeavoring to create propelled arrangements that will facilitate banks' activities, empower their business groups and energize their clients. These plots have generated another industry – Fintech – that is still in the transformative stage. As access to and the refinement of individual innovation have extended, banks have tried harder, with blended outcomes, endeavoring to remain in front of the innovation bend and, most likely more vitally, the consistently expanding desires for their clients.

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It takes an association with exceptional and noteworthy mastery to legitimately parse the data and commotion in the Fintech space, and deliver a clearer way to progress for the majority of its players. Efma, the worldwide and biggest system of banks on the planet (in excess of 3000 money related foundations are individuals, led by Citi), encourages associations among chiefs in the budgetary administrations biological community (investors, back up plans, fintech, regtech, giving quality bits of knowledge and market insight to enable monetary organizations to settle on the correct choices to cultivate development and drive change.

2.4.6. Investment Management Investment Management is an expression that refers to the purchasing and offering of speculations inside a portfolio, and can likewise incorporate saving money and planning obligations, and also charges. The term regularly alludes to portfolio administration and the exchanging of securities to accomplish a particular speculation objective.
 
 Investment management – additionally alluded to as cash administration, portfolio administration or private saving money – covers the expert administration of different securities and resources, for example, securities, shares, land and different securities. Appropriate speculation administration intends to meet specific venture objectives to support the financial specialists. These financial specialists might be people (private speculators) who have constructed venture contracts with reserve chiefs, or institutional investors who might be annuity subsidize organizations, governments, instructive foundations or insurance agencies. Venture administration administrations incorporate resource allocation, financial explanation examination, stock determination, observing of existing speculations and plan usage.

2.4.7. Machine Intelligence Machine intelligence s propelled registering that empowers a machine to interface with its condition in a wise way. In its easiest definition, man-made reasoning expects to mirror information, aptitudes and capacities that would somehow or another require human mind. It mechanizes and make forms more proficient. Machine learning empowers PCs to take similarly people do – by translating the information

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around us and settling on a choice dependent on that information, now and again naturally gaining from the achievement or disappointment of that choice. ML is significantly more than just PC programming to empower the machine to display 'shrewd' conduct. Machine Learning upgrades the PC programming to 'gain from condition' degree and enhances their execution after some time. Significantly the machine learning strategies require the software engineer to analyze and ponder the information preceding time to recognize the critical highlights (Features here connote the qualities of the information which relates to the effectively anticipating the coveted yield). Learning is a many – faceted wonder. Learning forms incorporate the procurement of new revelatory information, the advancement of engine and intellectual aptitudes through guidance or practice, the association of new learning into general, viable portrayal, and the disclosure of new certainties and hypotheses through perception and experimentation. Since the initiation of the PC time, scientists have been endeavoring to embed such abilities in PCs. Taking care of this issue has been, and remains, a most difficult and intriguing long – extend objective in man-made reasoning (AI). The investigation and PC demonstrating of learning forms in their various appearances comprises the topic of machine learning. Most machine learning methods require the developer to inspect the dataset early and recognize the vital highlights. Highlights are qualities of the information that best correspond to effectively foreseeing the coveted yield. For instance, a FICO assessment is likely an essential element of the credit candidate dataset while deciding the danger of advance default. The developer at that point decides the best models for the machine learning project to apply to the highlights to such an extent that the mistake rate of anticipated yields is limited. It's vital to comprehend that a machine learning program must be prepared. Hundreds or thousands of very much characterized information records should be nourished into the program so the prescient model can refine itself after some time. With each record it figures out how to all the more precisely anticipate yields when given another info.

2.4.8. Marketplace Lending Marketplace Lending is a term that has as of late become possibly the most important factor. The term is synonymous with P2P Lending and includes the majority of the types of p2p loaning on different stages. Proposed by Renaud Lalplanche, CEO of Lending Club at the Lendit gathering a year ago, he felt that the

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expression "commercial center loaning" could be less befuddling to some that don't comprehend the meaning of p2p loaning. "Shared loaning and commercial center loaning are basically synonymous. Numerous erroneously trust that "peer" implies little retail financial specialist, and they cried foul when expansive foundations entered the space. In IT organizing dialect, an "Associate" is basically an end client, paying little mind to estimate, that has square with access to a dispersed application design arrange", says Don Davis of Prime Meridian Capital Management. Establishment Capital, an investment firm represent considerable authority in money related innovation and commercial center loaning openings, trusts that "Commercial center Lending… is in a general sense about making stages to associate borrowers with banks" with innovation making it workable for "… third part(ies) to coordinate inactive free market activity."

2.4.9. Money Management Money management is the way toward planning, sparing, contributing, spending or generally regulating the capital utilization of an individual or gathering. The overwhelming utilization of the expression in financial markets is that of a speculation proficient settling on venture choices for substantial pools of assets, such as mutual funds or pension designs. Cash administration can likewise be alluded to as "speculation administration" and "portfolio administration."

Cash administration is a wide term that includes and joins administrations and arrangements over the whole speculation industry. In the market, shoppers approach an extensive variety of assets and applications that enable them to separately oversee almost every part of their personal accounts. As speculators' expansion their total assets they additionally frequently look for the administrations of monetary counselors for expert cash administration. Budgetary counsels are regularly connected with private saving money and business administrations, offering support for comprehensive cash administration designs that can include domain arranging, retirement and that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Venture organization cash administration is likewise a focal part of the speculation business in general. Venture organization cash administration offers singular shoppers speculation support choices that 26

envelop all investable resource classes in the money related market. Speculation company money managers also bolster the capital administration of institutional customers, with venture answers for institutional retirement designs, enrichments, establishments and the sky is the limit from there.

2.5. Impact of Fintech on Retail Banking The FinTech has caused major disruption in payment solutions, consumer credits, bank accounts (current and savings) and merchant payment solutions etc., which has further generated alternate payment solutions like ‘Apply Pay’, ‘Amazon Wallet’, ‘Revolut’, etc. Disruption in ‘P2P’ and crowdfunding segments which gave SME’s ease of access to financial services which were difficult to obtain through traditional channels. There are number of new entrants within the payment system, which was earlier dominated by only banks. These new entrants are non-banking businesses which are offering their customers a highly convenient payment services. These payment services are quick, versatile, and are easier-to-deploy option with the promise of established reputation. Non-banking player includes retailers (Amazon, Uber), telecommunication providers (Vodafone), technology companies (Apple, Oyster, Google, Samsung) and start-ups (Revolut) (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2016). The emergence of big tech players like Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Samsung in the financial services is big breakthrough for Financial Technology revolution (SUMMERS, 2017) As to technology itself, with the strong multiplier effect on both employment and output, we recommend the focus of co-operation be in distributed ledger. This supports the argument by (Nienaber, 2016) that incumbents need to rethink collaboration not competition. A distributed ledger is simply a ledger, or a string of records in a database, distributed and stored over the Internet in a decentralized way. Ledgers are of course central to the financial sector. Decentralization of record storing contributes to the immutability of all the copies of complete databases. Every copy would need to be altered in order to alter past records. Ledger refers to different ways the data is stored. Blockchain technology is one of the types of distributed ledger technology. In order to understand distributed ledgers, one must also understand the concept of the blockchain. This is a secure way to transfer financial assets over the Internet using decentralized ledgers. Blockchain was a concept that gained significant attention with the rise of decentralised digital cryptographic currencies (Nakamoto, 2008).

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In a report, (Oliver Wyman, 2017) argued incumbents’ business models need to be reviewed. They believed this has to be done in the various layers of financial transfers, communication, identification, checking and settlements. In addition to blockchain (Bunea, Kogan, and Stolin, 2016) there are a number of other fintech areas identified that we have not yet mentioned. These including P2P-crediting, E-wallets, Bitcoins, mPOS-acquiring, T-commerce, and mobile banks. The collaboration by Scottish and Irish financial institutions of these technologies has been slow. Whilst new technologies could prove to bring more efficiency and cut down operational costs to incumbent banks, they might not increase profits. It is not all about the incumbents. New companies also benefit from collaboration. When looking at the revenue generated by retail banks on the basis of ROE, new fintech companies have the opportunity to capture banks fees by generating activities that are not balance orientated. These gave banks 6 per cent ROE on average, where fintech payments, advice, loan origination can achieve 22 per cent ROE. In this manner, according to (Oliver Wyman, 2017), there is a great opportunity for non-capital intensive fintech businesses to provide those services. Finally, we illustrate with table three that it is important to highlight that collaboration is not the same as fintech business models or marketing strategies. It is not based on differentiation or cost leadership, although these two elements are clearly present. In the same vein, although internal controls and incentive structures are often different between incumbents and challenger, they are not ingrained into a form of FinTech business model.

2.6. How Fintech Impacts Purchasing Behavior of Customers Since there is an increasing adoption of FinTech solutions globally, which has also created an important transformation in the purchasing behaviour of customers. The FinTech payment methods are significantly increasing used. The major reasons behind this increasing adoption FinTech payment solutions are convenience and customer – centric nature of solutions. Technology and customer experience-centricity fintech solutions such as PayPal, Paytm, Square and so on are compose of first generation and are making benchmark of the much convenient payments experience in every prospect. Retail and commerce are the two sector which have witnessed the empowerment of SMEs within the sector due to increasing adoptability of FinTech. These simple payments methods have changed the purchasing experience of the customers by introducing mobile-focused payment solutions. It not just challenged current approaches but has also introduced different ways for all stakeholders (retailers,

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customers, etc) to win (Mesropyan, 2017). Customers can also benefits from the functionality to visualize, understanding and adjustment of spending habits in ways which were not available previously (Branch, 2016).

2.7. How Fintech is changing the payment method There was new boost altogether when FinTech companies launched an online financial services and applications series with various forms of payment in accordance with the objectives and the consumer’s needs (Grant, 2016). Currently with FinTech development, customers are not required to visit banks for their payment needs and transactions, instead customers are performing all transactions using available online financial services conveniently whenever and wherever they want in a much faster and easier way. In today’s busy society, the consumers always want to simplify their daily financial transaction to the minimum level to save time and efforts but still can assure the needed safety and security. The financial transactions in recent years have gone through many positive changes in the form of payment for the customer as many countries have started changing to perform non-cash transactions (Desai, 2015).

2.7.1. Mobile wallet A digital wallet that makes the use of technology to store digitised valuables like credit and debit cards, enabling customers to make payments at stores more securely and quickly than ever (Grant, 2016). The main objectives for this payment method invention are: 

The replacement of physical wallets



Enhance convenience



Speedy and secure transactions for customers



Building of cashless society

(Mobile Payment Solutions: Consumer Retail, Peer-to-Peer Payments, Wallet Market and Forecasts 2014 2020, 2014).

2.7.2. Cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency designed to work as a medium of exchange. It uses cryptography to secure and verify transactions as well as to control the creation of new units of a cryptocurrency (What is Cryptocurrency. Guide for Beginners, no date). The emergence of ‘Bitcoin’ has challenged the traditional financial market and financial transactions, as it opened the possibilities to carry

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out financial settlements without any regulations or a transaction fee (EY - Fintech: Are banks responding appropriately? - EY - China, 2015) Using Bitcoin by customers can also boost the simplicity, safety and quickness and efficiency in performing the financial transaction. For example, From the seller's perspective, Bitcoin is a very good option because if the payment is made via PayPal, the buyer can claim his money back at any time, while Bitcoin does not allow the buyer to take the money back if the seller has already received it. From the buyer' perspective, Bitcoin makes the transactions simpler and quicker as it uses P2P payment model rather than other intermediaries (Carrick, 2016).

2.8. Literature Conclusion Fintech, a portmanteau of 'money related innovation,' is utilized portray new tech that tries to enhance and mechanize the conveyance and utilization of budgetary administrations. At its center, fintech is used to encourage organizations, business owners and customers better deal with their money related tasks, processes and lives by using particular programming and calculations that are utilized on computers and, progressively, smartphones. When fintech emerged in the 21st Century, the term was initially connected to innovation utilized at the back-end frameworks of established financial foundations. Since at that point, in any case, there has been a move to more shopper arranged services and in this manner a more buyer situated definition. Fintech has extended to incorporate any mechanical development in — and mechanization of — the monetary area, including advances in budgetary proficiency, counsel and instruction, and additionally streamlining of riches administration, loaning and borrowing, retail saving money, raising support, cash exchanges/installments, speculation administration and that's just the beginning. Fintech also includes the advancement and utilization of crypto-currencies such as bitcoin. That fragment of fintech may see the most features, the huge cash still lies in the customary global banking industry and its $8 trillion market capitalization. Broadly, the term 'monetary innovation' can apply to any development in how individuals execute business, from the creation of advanced cash to twofold section accounting. Since the web upset and the versatile web/cell phone upheaval, in any case, monetary innovation has developed violently, and fintech, which initially alluded to PC innovation connected to the back office of banks or exchanging firms, now portrays a wide assortment of mechanical intercessions into individual and business fund. Fintech now depicts an assortment of money related exercises, such as money exchanges, keeping a check with your cell phone, bypassing a bank office to apply for credit, raising money for a business startup, or 30

managing your investments, generally without the help of a man. Concurring to EY's 2017 Fintech Adoption Index, 33% of shoppers use no less than at least two fintech administrations and those customers are additionally progressively mindful of fintech as a piece of their every day lives. The most discussed (and most subsidized) fintech new companies share a similar trademark: they are intended to be a danger to, challenge, and eventually usurp dug in customary money related administrations suppliers by being more agile, serving an underserved portion or giving quicker or potentially better administration. For instance, Affirm looks to remove charge card organizations of the web based shopping process by offering a route for customers to anchor quick, here and now advances for buys. While rates can be high, Affirm professes to offer a path for shoppers with poor or no credit an approach to both secure credit and furthermore build their records as a consumer. Essentially, Better Mortgage looks to streamline the home loan process (and deter customary home loan brokers) with a computerized just offering that can compensate clients with a confirmed pre-endorsement letter inside 24 hours or applying. GreenSky seeks to connect home enhancement borrowers with banks by helping shoppers stay away from dug in loan specialists and save money on enthusiasm by offering zero-premium limited time periods. For shoppers with no or poor credit, Tala offers customers in the creating scene microloans by completing a profound information burrow on their cell phones for their exchange history and apparently random things, such as what versatile amusements they play. Tala tries to give such customers preferable choices over neighborhood banks, unregulated moneylenders and other microfinance institutions. To put it plainly, on the off chance that you have each asked why some perspective of your money related life was so repulsive, (for example, applying for a home loan with a customary moneylender) or felt like it wasn't exactly the correct fit, fintech probably has (or looks to have) a solution for you. For instance, fintech looks to answer addresses like 'for what reason is the thing that makes up my FICO score so secretive and how it is utilized to pass judgment on my financial soundness?' As such, advance originator Upstart needs to make FICO (as well as different loan specialists both conventional and fintech) out of date by utilizing diverse informational collections to decide reliability. They incorporate business history, instruction, and whether an eventual borrower realizes their financial assessment to choose whether to guarantee and how to value credits. Similar treatment is given to monetary administrations that extend from scaffold advances for house flippers (LendingHome), to a computerized speculation stage that tends to the way that ladies live more and have exceptional investment funds necessities, will in general acquire not as much as men and have distinctive pay bends that can allow for reserve funds to develop (Ellevest). 31

Fintech new companies got $17.4 billion in subsidizing in 2016 and were poised to outperform that entirety starting late 2017, as per CB Insights, which checked 26 fintech unicorns globally esteemed at $83.8 billion. North America produces the vast majority of the fintech new businesses, with Asia a moderately close second. Worldwide fintech funding hit another high in the primary quarter of 2018 let by a huge uptick in arrangements in North America. Asia, which could outperform the United States in fintech deals, also saw a spike in activity. Funding movement in Europe was at a five-quarter low in Q1 2018 however flooded back in Q2. Some of the most dynamic zones of fintech development incorporate or spin around the accompanying territories: 

Cryptocurrency and advanced money



Blockchain innovation, including Etherium, a circulated record innovation (DLT) that keep up records on a system of PCs, yet has no focal record.



Smart contracts, which use PC programs (frequently using the blockchain) to consequently execute contracts among purchasers and dealers.



Open saving money, an idea that inclines toward the blockchain and places that outsiders ought to approach bank information to construct applications that make an associated system of monetary organizations and outsider suppliers. A precedent is the across the board cash administration apparatus Mint.



Insurtech, which tries to utilize innovation to rearrange and streamline the protection business.



Regtech, which tries to help budgetary administration firms meet industry consistence rules, particularly those covering Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer conventions which battle misrepresentation.



Robo-counsels, for example, Betterment, use calculations to computerize speculation guidance to bring down its expense and increment availability.



Unbanked/underbanked, administrations that look to serve hindered or low-pay people who are overlooked or underserved by customary banks or standard budgetary administrations organizations.



Cybersecurity, given the expansion of cybercrime and the decentralized stockpiling of information, cybersecurity and fintech are entwined.

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3. Research Methodology 3.1. Introduction As mentioned by Robert B. Burns and Richard A. Burns (2008, p.5), “Research is a procedure of organized and logical investigative study conducted to address a specific problem which further leads to enhanced and improvised learning”. The reason behind carrying out this research study is to understand the impact of Financial Technology (FinTech) on the Irish Retail sector both from customer point of view and retailer point of view. The study also focusses on the issues relevant to the Irish Retail Sector with context to FinTech and its implementation in the business in day – to – day life. Within the sectoral analysis, the major focus is on the future prospects of the FinTech in the retail sector and the impact it will have on the sector and people associated with the sector. This research study has been focused to understand the concept of Fintech and its impact on Irish Retail Sector. Therefore, in order to receive all information required to achieve research purpose, this chapter for Research Methodology would talk about the methodology adopted for the purpose of this. The chapter would also explain the design, universe, sample selection, data collection methods and its analysis along with the ethical issues within the research and the limitations being faced.

3.2. Research Problem Elizabeth Orna and Graham Stevens (1995, p.20) states that it is important for a researcher to highlight the research problem in the initial stages of research as the same directs the entire research and remains the main focus at every step of the research conducted. Therefore, it can be said that the research problem lays the foundation for the research and relevant elements of the study. For this investigation, the general research problem is stated as follows: “What impact does Fintech have on the retail sector in Irish Market?”

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3.3. Research Objectives Lawrence S. Silver (2013, p. 15) stated that the research objectives are the questions and the hypothesis which a researcher is looking forward to get answers to or to prove the same by the research study conducted. Further to this, Lawrence (2012, p. 16) mentioned that research objectives work as the guide for the research results and offer direction and scope to the study as well as works as the foundation to develop the methodology to be used in the study process. Saunders and Lewis (2014, p 21) emphasize on developing research objectives from the research problem stated as, the same gives a precise and clear direction to the research study. For this study, the research objectives are stated below: “How Fintech has effected the Irish Retail Sector”

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3.4. Research Methodology & Structure The main aim of this research study is to demonstrate the impact of Fintech, if any, on the Irish Retail Market by a way of Qualitative and Quantitative study. To achieve the results, the researcher used the ‘Research Onion Model’ which was proposed by Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009, p. 108). The research onion model has six layers to it, with each layer acting as a stage of the methodology; starting from the research philosophy, to the research approach to research strategy to research choice to time horizons to the final layer of techniques and procedures. The research methodology in other words, is the outline to collect, measure and analyse the data to carry out the research successfully.

3.4.1. Research Philosophy Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009, p. 108) state that the research philosophy is the most crucial and important postulation which a researcher has for the world. These postulations would then underline the research strategy with regards to the process in which the research would be carried out. As mentioned by Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009, p. 108) have highlighted four major philosophies in their research onion model: Positivism, Realism, Interpretivism and Pragmatism. For the purpose of this study, “Fintech: Its impact on Retail Sector in Irish Market”, the researcher would imply the Interpretivism Research Philosophy. This philosophy would offer the researcher an understanding of humans in their respective roles within the organisations as the social actors. The

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researcher is using Interpretivism philosophy as the research study involves understanding human thoughts and ideas with regards to the impact of Fintech in Irish retail sector.

3.4.2. Research Approach After finalising for the research philosophy, the researcher needs to decide the research approach to be able to conduct the research smoothly and in a logical process. The importance of the research approach has been emphasized by Maylor and Blackmon (2005, p. 149) as being the dependable with the research question. The duo also maintains that the choice of the research approach limits the methods available for research to a researcher and thus need critical evaluation before finalizing the one. Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009, p. 108) has mentioned two research approaches in their Research Onion Model (Figure 3): Deductive and Inductive approaches. They have explained both the approaches well in their textbooks. The Deductive approach being the one based on a theory / hypotheses while the Inductive approach is to analyse the data collected after research. The Inductive research approach has been related to the Interpretivism research philosophy (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009, p. 124). For the purpose of this research study, the researcher has conducted interviews and surveys both following the inductive and deductive research approaches. The two approached has enabled the researcher to carry out the both qualitative and quantitative research study to understand in – detail the impact of the FinTech on the Irish Retail Sector. The study has 3 major interviews from individuals working in retail sector at senior positions of three different brands along with 200 survey respondents.

3.4.3. Research Strategy Research strategy is the third layer of the research onion and is crucial as the same is the way the research would be conducted. As per Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2008, p.141) different research strategies could be used for different types of research: exploratory, descriptive or explanatory ones. These different researches either belong to deductive approach or inductive approach. The trio, Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2008, p.142) states that the selection of research strategy should be guided by and have to be in sync with the research questions and objectives. The selected research strategy should be able to answer the research questions and be able to meet the defined research objectives. For the purpose of this paper, the research will adopt Survey as the research strategy. Given the nature of the surveys, the researcher believes the use of multi method is to be employed for the data collection. A questionnaire along with one-on-one in-depth interviews with individuals was employed for the research. 36

3.4.4. Research Choice Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2012, p. 165) state that the research methodological choice can be either a mono – method or a mixed method. As depicted in the figure below, the mono method refers to the single mode of data collection either in the quantitative or qualitative study. Whereas, the mixed method refers to the quantitative + qualitative study methods; while the multiple methods refer to more than one method for qualitative and quantitative study. Methodological Choice

Mono Method

Quantitative Study

Qualitative Study

Multiple Methods

Multimethod

Mixed Method

Multimethod Quantitative study

Multimethod Quantitative

Mixed model research

Mixed method research

Complex - Fully integrated double or multiple phase concurrent mixing

Simple - partially integrated single phase sequesntial mixing

Methodological choice (Saunder, Lewis and Thornhill, 2012, p. 165)

For the purpose of this study, the researcher would be using the multi method of research choice within the qualitative study of research. The multi method would focus on the questionnaires with the individuals working in retail sector within Irish markets.

3.4.5. Time Horizon Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2008, p. 155) mention that before finalising the Time Horizon for the research study, the researcher should ask self, if the researcher wants the research to be a snapshot, i.e. a study conducted at a particular time rather being carried over a long time to understand patterns and series of events. The two time horizons are: Cross Sectional (snapshot time horizon) and Longitudinal (diary time horizon). For the purpose of this study, the researcher would focus on the snapshot time horizon, i.e. CrossSectional 37

and would carry out the research within the time period of three-four weeks. The overall time for the dissertation allotted is twelve weeks, which itself is the limited time period. As mentioned by Blumberg, Cooper and Schindler (2011, pp. 493) Cross-sectional research studies are the ones which are conducted only once at a particular time period yet they have the tendency to divulge a quick shot of the research problem / objective at one given / mentioned point of time.

3.4.6. Data Collection Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2008, pp. 156) refers to Reliability as the extent to which the techniques used for data collection or procedures adapted to analyse the data collected yield the consistent findings. In other words, Reliability is the extent to which a test or procedure produces similar results under constant conditions on all occasions. Sapsford and Jupp (1996) define Validity as the research design to provide credible conclusions only if the facts and evidences collected from the research study interprets the same and verify it. Primary Data Primary data collection would be an integral part of the research study. After analysing the primary data available for the study of qualitative data, theories would be developed based on the same. The major source of primary data would be through surveys conducted through questionnaires and interviews through one- on – one interactions. Secondary Data Collection Secondary data available would be used wherever appropriate. The journals, articles, books, blogs, etc. were used for the literature review and the in-depth understanding of the Fintech and its components along with the impact it has on the retail industry in general.

3.4.7. Sample For this research study, the researcher has used non- probability and purposive sampling technique for survey and interviews respectively. This sampling technique would help the researcher to understand the market scenario in detail. Samples aren't selected arbitrarily. So appropriate selective samples square measure chosen within the trade as follows: 3 totally different companies within the Irish Retail sector and consultants of FinTech. Purposive sampling was conjointly used into the analysis of FinTech within the monetary services sector. Purposive sampling is victimization one's judgement to pick out explicit people that may best modify the investigator to answer the analysis question and meet the objectives. It’s additional correct to be used heterogeneous or most variation sampling that uses

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judgement to

decide

on participants

with

sufficiently numerous characteristics to

produce most variation attainable within the data collected Saunders et al (2012 pg 287) The purposive sampling was done with the two interviews with Head of Innovations and financial technology in two different financial institutions and one interview with an economist for a macro view. Another interview was with the Head of Financial Services for the world's largest professional service and accountancy. The fifth interview is of the CEO of a new start-up FinTech company here in Ireland and the sixth with the Minister for Finance leading innovation FinTech here in Ireland. Therefore, the relevant people with relevant experience from a macro point of view, financial technology and the financial services sector have been selected.

3.4.8. Analysing data collected This study involved a combination of research methods which includes both qualitative and quantitative for analysing the problems being faced by the customers and retailers due to the impact of Fintech. The quantitative method will be analysed from the questionnaires to the retail customers and retailers and the qualitative method will be analysed from the statistics and numerical data. For the purpose of this research study and to analyse the qualitative data, the researcher has used the Template Analysis inductive analytical procedure to analyse the data collected. As King (2004) mentions, a template is fundamentally a list of codes and categories which are used to represent the various themes revealed from the collected data. Buehring, Cassell and Symon (2006) refer to template analysis as a variety of the relative techniques which assist in the thematic organisation and analysis of the verbally transformed textual data. The template analysis helped the researcher to structure data into different themes, identify relationships between these themes and compare perspectives of the different interviewees (Buehring, Cassell and Symon, 2006).

3.5. Research Ethics For the purpose of this investigation, the researcher paid special care and attention to the ethical code of conduct while investigating the research topic in order to avoid any arising ethical issues throughout the different stages of the research process. All information and data which was collected by way of conducting in-depth interviews or questionnaires and documents was only used for the purpose of this academic research. The researcher demonstrated high integrity and objectivity at all different research stages and the privacy of the information shared by all companies was respected and the information has been kept confidential. Furthermore, the participation in the qualitative in-depth interviews /

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questionnaires from the companies and their representatives was a voluntary and pre-informed move with each participant holding the right to withdraw from the investigation at any stage.

3.6. Research Limitations While conducting this research there were some limitations and hurdles faced which. The basic and initial limitation was the non- availability of / limited literature available on the FInTech and its impact on Irish Retail Sector. The lack of literature left the researcher with the limited understanding of the FinTech in Irish retail market. The next limitation impacted the research study was one’s willingness with regards to conducting one-to-one interviews with various participants. This limitation was however, dealt smartly while conducting telephonic interviews, email interviews and Skype conversations with the participants. The last but not the least limitation faced during this research study was the selection of the samples. It was not possible for the researcher to make valid inferences about the population (number of retail companies using FinTech) which implied that the sample was not representative. Furthermore, time limitations to the research allowed approaching only a small number of subjects, symbolizing a sample size which was smaller than ideal, and therefore further restricted the accuracy of the findings.

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4. Data Findings and Analysis 1. Data Findings and Analysis 1.1.

Introduction

FinTech has been playing a crucial role in our day – to - day life. Be it making a payment online, or through mobile wallets, or peer – to – peer payments, it is all FinTech that has transformed the way we used to make money transactions. In this research study, the focus of the study has been to understand the impact FinTech has levied or will be having on the Irish Retail Sector. To carry out this research and understand the trends in the market, the researcher used both quantitative and qualitative method of research. The researcher conducted surveys (catering to customers) as well as had one – on - one interviews with the people working in retail sector (management level). The survey was conducted with 110 respondents which had a mix of people in age groups of 18 – 28; 28 – 40; 40 – 60 and 60+. The 110 respondents included students, working professionals and self employed people. The research study has helped researcher gain insights about the retail sector in Ireland and the effect FinTech is having on it currently. The study also helped understand the difficulties for retailers to completely switch to FinTech solutions from traditional money transaction services.

1.2.

Research Findings

1.2.1. Survey Findings To understand the viewpoint of the customers carrying out transaction with retail industry, a survey was carried out to know, how much the customers are aware about the FinTech and its uses.

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

Age Group of the Participant: The majority of the respondents out of 110 fall in the age group of 18 – 28 (49.1%), which signifies the millennial generation who are more tech savvy and are much aware about the recent upgraded technologies. The least was the people aged above 60 as they are the laid-backs when it comes to the use of technology. This huge gap signifies the generation difference as well as the usability of the technology for each generation. 

Gender: More than 50% of the respondents in

the survey are males. Male population being more active when it comes to the usage of technology. Also, the payments are generally made by the male partners in the family so the use FinTech solutions is more relevant for them.



Occupation: More than half of the survey respondents are working professionals, since they are the ones who make use of FinTech Solutions the most while making bill payments, shopping, food and etc. Working professionals and students are the most tech savvy of all respondents and thus are familiar with FinTech Solutions.

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

Do you have a bank account? Almost every respondent had their individual bank accounts, however a mere 1.8% of the respondents which were majorly the people aged above 60+ did not have bank accounts. This 1.8% of the respondents prefer dealing in cash or through post office for their money related transactions.



How many times do you physically visit banks in a month: Even today, majority of the people visit bank, however, not more than 4 times a month. While there are others in considerable numbers who do not visit banks at all and fulfill all their banking needs through internet banking or mobile banking. Since many banks have also introduced their banking apps, it has become more convenient for people to not to visit bank and still carry out all transactions and dealings with banks.



Do you use e-Banking Facilities: Almost

every one these days, uses e-banking facilities as it is more convenient and simpler to use. The 10% of the respondents who are not using e-banking services are the ones with no bank accounts or are above 60+ age.

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

How do you use e-banking facilities: Majority of the respondents (75%) use their smartphones for

their banking needs and transactions. Next in the category comes the laptop users for banking transactions which is around 48%. This graph clearly depicts that the current scenario is of banking on the go (using smartphones / laptops). FinTech solutions has cut short the time people used to spend on the money and banking transactions.



Why you use mobile banking: The major reason why people are using mobile banking more these

days is the easy accessibility and availability of information as well as the ease of use mobile banking offers to its customers. While increased security and ability to monitor and control transactions should considerably the important ones, users do not feel these factors as the reason to mobile banking. Customers associate mobile banking with ease and comfort.

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

Your preferred way of transferring money: Majority of the people these days prefer mobile banking for the money transfer, as it

is

convenient

more and

easy to use; it also offers banking on – the – go to its customers. However, FinTech solutions are also gaining popularity among people to use them for money transferring. The ATMs are losing their charm among people to transfer money as they are tedious and need more time and effort.



Do you use FinTech products other than Traditional banking system methods: As the graph highlights most of the people, even today prefer traditional banking system over other solutions offered by FinTech solutions. This is mainly due to the fact that people are not much aware about the solutions available or are hesitant to use due to security concerns.



Do you use Fintech solutions on day-to-day basis: Even today, people are not using FinTech solutions as the part and parcel of their lives. Out of 110 respondents only 33.6% are using FinTech solution on a regular basis. This depicts the struggle FinTech companies still need to go through to get them working and earn popularity among customers.

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

Select the answer: Most people strongly agree to the fact that mobile banking is easier to use and access compared to a physical visit to a bank. Again there are many people are not sure about

whether FinTech solutions have improved their shopping experience with retail markets or not. Almost 40% of the respondents feel that FinTech solutions are widely accepted by the customers however 42% of respondents are not sure about the wider acceptance of the FinTech Solutions.



Which payment modes do you mostly use for day to day retail shopping: Even today, bank cards like debit / credit cards. The cash payments are losing their popularity while the E-Wallets are gaining popularity among people. However, the non-banking cards and the cryptocurrency are still struggling to mark their existence in the Financial market.

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

What are the problems in using Fintech solutions? Rate from 1-5 where 5 is for main problem: The major problem people face while using FinTech solutions is the easy and effective internet

accessibility and the trust worthiness of the source. The next is the online security issues related to cybercrime. We all know, as the technology advances, the disruptors also enhance their skills to disrupt the growth. The need to have knowledge is not seen as the hurdle in using the FinTech solutions, as people are aware of the available solutions, however, the security concerns and the internet accessibility restricts the usage for customers.



Are banks / financial institutes running an awareness program to promote FInTech payment modes in the market: Out of 80 respondents, only 25 believe that yes banks and financial

institutions are making an effort to promote FinTech payment modes in the market. 15 people believe that banks are not working to promote FinTech solutions within the market. Rest of the respondents are either not sure if banks are doing enough to promote FinTech in market or they do not have any idea about the situation.

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

What are the impacts of Fintech on Customer behavior: Since this was an open ended question, there is no graph available for the same. However, the majority responses were the Impulsive Buying. Most respondents feel that FinTech solutions trigger the impulsive buying among the customers since they do not have to re-think before buying about the available cash with them. The customers with FinTech Solutions can always pay through various payment modes available (mobile banking, peer – peer payment, e-wallet, etc.)



Concept of E-wallets/Mobile wallets and its impact on retails sector? Has it made your shopping experience Fast/Easy: People associate E-wallets and mobile wallets with convenience and easy to use applications. The respondents also believe that FinTech has eased out their shopping experience.

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

Is FinTech made for the Young Generation alone: Almost 32.7% of the respondents feel that yes FinTech is definitely made for the young generation alone. 14.5% of the respondents are not sure but believe that FinTech is young generation’s product alone. However, not a single respondent feels that FinTech is also for older generations.

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1.2.2. Interview Findings

There were face – 2 – face interviews conducted with randomly selected individuals working in the retail sector. Since, there are number of stores in Ireland and there was time restriction with regards to carry out the research, the researcher opted to interview people from Dublin city only. However, the researcher tried to be non-biased while selecting the respondents and there was no forceful interaction with the respondents. The researcher approached around 20 – 25 retailers in Dublin city, however could get respond from only 3 retailers who willingly participated in the interview. The respondents were well informed prior to the start of the interview about the purpose of the interview and the confidentiality of the responses shared by them. Interviewee Profiles 

Tahir - Manager – Topaz - Circle K

Tahir has been working in the retails industry for 14 years in Ireland. He has witnessed various changes and developments within the retail sector over the years. His interview was of great insight in context to FinTech. 

Eion - Manager - Lidl Manager

Eion has worked with various retail stores during his 10 years of experience in retail industry. He believes that Irish Retail Industry has grown many folds in last few years and is tend to grow more. 

Geraldine - Owner - Cost cutter

Its been 19 years for Geraldine within the retail sector. She started her own store nearly 10 years ago and has adopted herself with the changing times and improving technology. Though, in her fifties, Geraldine has adopted to the new and advanced technology quickly and is ready to do the same in future for her customers’ convenience.



How long you are working in retail sector: All the interviewees have an experience of over 10 years within the retail sector in Irish market and hold strong decision making positions within their 50

respective organizations. This allowed the researcher to have an in-depth evaluation of FinTech situation within the retail industry.



What do you know about fintech i.e. digitisation in finance? (digitisation in payment modes): The three interviewees do know about FinTech solutions available in the market and are using some of them in their respective retails stores as well. The interviewees are well aware about the digitization of financial services through the mode of FinTech.



What do you think are the essential need to implement digitised payment modes (fintech) in retail sector: Respondents feel that there is dire need to spread awareness among customers about Fintech so that they actively use and adopt FinTech payment solutions. This will also ease out the retail industry’s burden of holding cash and will bring in more efficiency in the work environment.



Will fintech (digitised payment modes) will impact the retail sector? If so, how will it impact the sector? (consumer shopping style- impulsive buying with use of cards): Respondents believe that FinTech will surely ease out the money transactions hurdles among the customers and the retailers, however, they also think that FinTech is better off for young generation. According to one respondent, who is in late fifties, FinTech is not meant for older generation as it is difficult for them to adapt to this new and advanced technology. Also, the cash transactions are most trusted ones when it comes to the older generation.



In your view, what are the digitised payment modes customers mostly use now-a-days: As far the knowledge and awareness about the various payment modes available through FinTech solution is concerned, respondents have confidently mentioned about Apply Pay, Google Pay, Android Pay, Credit Cards, Gift Cards and mobile / e- wallets. This indicates that retailers are well informed about the various options available and are not hesitant to use them in their stores.



How likely is your company to respond in this emerging payment mode/ sector?

(How are

you integrating/ tackling the current changes in your business models?) (How you are preparing yourself with the new payment modes?) Are you training your staff for new system: The retailers in Ireland are responding to this new technology by organizing training sessions for their 51

employees, investing in new devices and machines to be able to use FinTech solutions and meet their customers’ changing requirements.



How efficient are these new digitised systems for your business? (save time, quick): FinTech is definitely considered more efficient and easier solution for making payments and transacting money, among retailers. They consider it time and energy saving, and believes that adopting Fintech solutions has increased the productivity of their employees at workplace.



What do you think can be an exception for this models or new system from customer side? (old age people, less knowledge, less trust): The exception of using FinTech solutions is the older generation who is technically not well equipped, knowledge gap among customers of how to use the various available solutions and the most important one is the security concerns of the customers while using these available transaction solutions.



Have you faced any problems while using the new advanced systems? and by your customers: The major faced by retailers while using FinTech solutions are the internet breakdown or system failure due to network loss. This indicates the dire need of efficient and fast internet connection with all retailers and customers. Slow internet or lost connection interrupts the payments and creates chaos for both customers and retailers.



Do you have any challenges with the current existing technology model: The major challenge faced by retailers is the loss of internet connection while transacting money, which makes them reboot the system and at times annoys the customer. There is still a huge knowledge gap among customers, as to the usage and usability of the FinTech Solutions available. The older generation is not readily accepting this new technology and has issues while transacting, and prefer making cash payments only.



Do you think digitised payment modes are the future of the Irish retail sector? (like customer acceptance to new digitisation): This is a definitely yes for all retailers. Respondents believe that FinTech solutions are the new age technology and is widely accepted by the young generation which is the future of Ireland. It is the millennial population which drives the growth of any 52

country. The young generation has accepted the FinTech solutions and is also using them in their day – 2 – day lives.



What challenges do you think Fintech companies(payment) can face in extending their consumer base in Ireland? How can they manage these challenges: FinTech has been criticized by the retailers for the security concerns and the complete dependency on internet connection? The retailers feel that to make FinTech a more acceptable money transacting mode / solution, it is mandatory to have efficient internet connection available with people. There is also a need of more transparency with regards to security issues and cybercrime associated with FinTech solutions.

1.2.3. In – Depth Analysis To carry out this research and understand the trends in the market, the researcher used both quantitative and qualitative method of research. The researcher conducted surveys (catering to customers) as well as had one – on - one interviews with the people working in retail sector (management level). The survey was conducted with 110 respondents which had a mix of people in age groups of 18 – 28; 28 – 40; 40 – 60 and 60+. The 110 respondents included students, working professionals and self employed people. The research study has helped researcher gain insights about the retail sector in Ireland and the effect FinTech is having on it currently. The study also helped understand the difficulties for retailers to completely switch to FinTech solutions from traditional money transaction services. To analyze the data collected and to understand the research findings in detail, the researcher has bifurcated the study into various segments for retailers and customers with respect to FinTech Solutions: 

FinTech Awareness – This segment would cater to the knowledge people (both retailers and customers) have about FinTech Solutions available today. The research study clearly states that both retailers and customers are well aware of the FinTech Solutions, specially those in their young and middle age. The older population has the least idea about the solutions available and hence are uncomfortable while talking about it. The study also reveals a strange fact about the older generation of not having bank accounts till date and carrying out their money related transaction through cash or post office services. The retailers and customers do have knowledge about the Fintech Solutions available, however, are not completely sure about using the same. FinTech is definitely considered more efficient and easier solution for

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making payments and transacting money, among retailers. They consider it time and energy saving, and believes that adopting Fintech solutions has increased the productivity of their employees at workplace. As far the knowledge and awareness about the various payment modes available through FinTech solution is concerned, respondents have confidently mentioned about Apply Pay, Google Pay, Android Pay, Credit Cards, Gift Cards and mobile / e- wallets. This indicates that retailers are well informed about the various options available and are not hesitant to use them in their stores. FinTech is definitely considered more efficient and easier solution for making payments and transacting money, among retailers. They consider it time and energy saving, and believes that adopting Fintech solutions has increased the productivity of their employees at workplace. 

FinTech Usage – As stated above in the findings, the retailers and customers are aware about the Fintech Solutions, however, are hesitant in using the same. Although, the retailers have started the staff trainings and practical sessions for them to understand the process and usage of the solutions available. The training sessions also caters to the technical issues; they might face while carrying out the transaction through Fintech Solutions available. The customers specially the millennial, are well aware about the FinTech solutions available and are using the same in their day – to – day lives. The millennial is comfortable in using these solutions as they tech savvy and high buzz generation. Be it mobile wallets, e-wallets, Apply Pay, Google Pay, or Android Pay, the millennial is using everything available to make their lives easier and comfortable. There is no doubt in the fact that FinTech solutions has eased out the tedious task of carrying hard cash or travelling to ATM every time you run out of cash at shopping. This ease of not carrying cash and not running to ATMs has promoted the usage of FinTech Solutions much more. The retailers are happy to use FinTech solutions as it allows them to stay away from cash counting at the end of every day duty. The older generation is not technically well equipped and therefore are reluctant to use FinTech Solutions. The retailers in Ireland are responding to this new technology by organizing training sessions for their employees, investing in new devices and machines to be able to use FinTech solutions and meet their customers’ changing requirements



Difficulties Faced – Both retailers and customers are happy to use FinTech solutions, however, due to various difficulties faced during the use of these solutions, both end users are slightly hesitant to use the same confidently. The major problem while using the FinTech Solutions is the internet connection. One needs to have a strong internet connection to use the solutions as the 54

same is completely based on the internet and technology. So, in case, while making the payment the internet connection is lost, the transaction fails causing delay in the process. The delay in completing the transaction can also be caused due to the system failure, i.e., if the device is not working properly or there is any fault in the system, the money transactional process would not complete. Another difficulty stated by the respondents is the knowledge gap for the FinTech solutions availability and usage among the end users. The FinTech companies need to communicate the process, benefits and essentials for end users to use the solutions comfortably. The issue is the security concern raised by both the retailers and the customers. The users are not sure about the safety while carrying out the transaction through FinTech solutions. If this fear for cybercrime is dealt with, then the end user would be using these solutions more confidently. FinTech has been criticized by the retailers for the security concerns and the complete dependency on internet connection? The retailers feel that to make FinTech a more acceptable money transacting mode / solution, it is mandatory to have efficient internet connection available with people. There is also a need of more transparency with regards to security issues and cybercrime associated with FinTech solutions. The major faced by retailers while using FinTech solutions are the internet breakdown or system failure due to network loss. This indicates the dire need of efficient and fast internet connection with all retailers and customers. Slow internet or lost connection interrupts the payments and creates chaos for both customers and retailers. The major challenge faced by retailers is the loss of internet connection while transacting money, which makes them reboot the system and at times annoys the customer. There is still a huge knowledge gap among customers, as to the usage and usability of the FinTech Solutions available. The older generation is not readily accepting this new technology and has issues while transacting, and prefer making cash payments only. 

Solutions Suggested: Both retailers and customers suggests that, since the solutions require internet and thus the availability of a strong internet connection would enable the end users to use the FinTech solution more frequently and efficiently. The other suggestion made by the respondents was to promote these solutions and spread knowledge about the usability and the usage process of the same. There is a lack of information about how to use these solutions efficiently and easily, if this knowledge gets filled up, the use and popularity of the Fintech will enhance and improve. There is a dire need of building confidence among the end users regarding the safety and security of using FinTech solutions. Since, end users are not sure about their online transactions’, hence if this threat of being cheated is dealt with then the usage of the FinTech 55

solutions would increase many folds. We all know, as the technology advances, the disruptors also enhance their skills to disrupt the growth. The need to have knowledge is not seen as the hurdle in using the FinTech solutions, as people are aware of the available solutions, however, the security concerns and the internet accessibility restricts the usage for customers.



Future Perspective – All the respondents of survey and interview strongly feel that Fintech has a way ahead with the retail industry. Since, the solutions offered bring convenience and comfort to users’ life, it is here to stay till an advanced and much more comfortable technology is invented. The retail sector has adopted the FinTech solutions to ease out their customers’ hurdles of making money transactions in every possible way. The future is the millennial, which is very tech savvy and quickly adapt themselves to the changing technology every day. Respondents believe that FinTech solutions are the new age technology and is widely accepted by the young generation which is the future of Ireland. It is the millennial population which drives the growth of any country. The young generation has accepted the FinTech solutions and is also using them in their day – 2 – day lives. Respondents believe that FinTech will surely ease out the money transactions hurdles among the customers and the retailers, however, they also think that FinTech is better off for young generation. According to one respondent, who is in late fifties, FinTech is not meant for older generation as it is difficult for them to adapt to this new and advanced technology. Also, the cash transactions are most trusted ones when it comes to the older generation.



Retail sector and FinTech Solutions: The interviewees who are at the management level position within their respective organizations, believe that if the Irish Retail sector complete adopts the fintech solutions and makes effective use of the same, then the retail scenario in Ireland will definitely improve. The retail customers would be at ease and be more comfortable in using the fintech solutions. The adoption of fintech would reduce the time, and energy required at both ends (retailers and customers) while carrying out the monetary transactions and making payments. There would be no long queues at the billing stations, no rush and change problems would be there. People would not be forced to carry huge cash at the retail stores, also, there would be travelling required to ATMs for cash dispensing. As the findings state, the mobile banking and e-banking are most preferred modes of payment these days, since they offer comfort and ease of use. Also these payment methods are more secure than any cash transaction or any other mode of payment available these days.

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5. Conclusion and Recommendations 5.1. Introduction There were limitations in the present literature and research studies with regards to Fintech Solutions and specifically with retail industry. This lack of literature and research studies for the industry has provided a significant structure and strength to the dissertation. The lack of any decisive and constructive knowledge about the industry and its growth prospects in the near future has structured this dissertation. This dissertation has also been very informative about the impact FinTech solution is and might be playing on the Irish Retail Sector. In this interview and survey based multi method design based research the data collected have highlighted the issues related to FinTech and the prospective solutions for the same. This

last

piece

of

the

research

would

cumulatively

study

and

analyse the

literature

review, analysis methodology and information analysis. The thesis discussion started by understanding the retail sector of Ireland, its history, present scenario and the future trends. A huge part of the Irish retail sector is family owned, however, most of them are ready to adopt the new and advanced technology for the customer sake. This research was to delve into FinTech here in Ireland to investigate what impact it is having on our traditional retailers and retail sector in overall. The information and data conducted from this qualitative and quantitative piece will provide our academics and practitioners with a great insight into this field for the coming future. This research proposal was designed to answer the following the questions: “What impact is FinTech having on Retail Sector in Ireland? “

5.2. Conclusion With any good research paper, the researcher must undergo an in depth literature review from past papers on the topic, books and current material available. Although financial technology has been around for some time, this new exciting FinTech terms is relatively new. Due to the investment within the industry at the moment several articles and papers from industry experts were available. The key element to the research was always going to come from the primary research rather the secondary research in order to answer the research question.

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The survey respondents and the interviewees helped researcher gain insight in the contextual knowledge for FinTech and its impact on the Irish Retail Sector. The research also helped gain the knowledge about the information and familiarity Irish people have regarding FinTech Solutions available. Both survey and interviews guided the research towards the fact that Fintech solutions are easier and convenient, however, the need of smooth and efficient internet connection, prevents the usage of the FinTech solutions. The limited knowledge about the solutions available and the usage of the same is also a hurdle when it comes effectively implement FinTech within retail sector. The another factor that restricts the complete usage or adoptability of the FinTech by Irish retail sector is that the older generation is not technically well equipped to use FinTech solutions for their day – to – day payments and transactions. The older generation is still comfortable in cash transactions or postal services for money transfers. However, in coming years the FinTech Solutions will be popular among all and would be the first preference of use while making money transactions.

5.3. Recommendations for further research In this segment of the dissertation report, the researcher would suggest some futuristic recommendations for further research and industrial importance. The recommendations for further research would be based on the academic and industrial research level, while the industrial importance recommendations would focus on the suggestions made to practitioners and industry people for the betterment of the industry and its growth. As a springboard, further research should explore the limits of the present findings. In contemplation of these limitations, the following section focusses on recommendations for academic research, impact of FinTech in Irish retail sector, practitioners and industry people in Ireland. The recommendations are derived from the research findings and complemented by insights gained from the literature review.

5.3.1. Further Academic Research As this report highlight that there has been no significant academic research conducted in the past or in recent years with a focus on Fintech and its impact on retail industry. Therefore, the researcher would suggest the future researchers to conduct an in-depth research and understand the retail industry. The future research could be focused on any part of the world, however the researcher would suggest that the study should be a comparative and cross study between two or more marketplaces. This cross study

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of the industry within few economies would give a deeper understanding about the growth prospects of the industry. Also, the researcher would like to recommend that the future studies should work on the analysis of the customer behavior while buying and making payment through Fintech solutions. This customer analysis would highlight the differences or similarities among the customers across the globe of the retail industry. This analysis would also help the various retail companies to look for the prospects of expanding across borders.

5.3.2. Further Industry Research Prospects

Since decades, the budgetary business has encountered a consistent development in administration conveyance because of digitalization. This advancement is portrayed by extended network and improved speed of data preparing both at the client interface and in back-office forms. As of late, there has been a move in the focal point of digitalization from enhancing the conveyance of customary assignments to presenting generally new business openings and models for money related administration organizations. Computerized Finance includes a greatness of new budgetary items, money related organizations, back related programming, and novel types of client correspondence and connection—conveyed by FinTech organizations and inventive monetary specialist co-ops. Against this setting, the exploration on fund and data frameworks has begun to investigate these progressions and the effect of advanced advancement on the budgetary division. In this way, this article surveys the ebb and flow condition of research in Digital Finance that bargains with these novel and inventive business capacities. Additionally, it gives an attitude toward potential future research headings. As a theoretical reason for checking on this field, the Digital Finance Cube, which grasps three key elements of Digital Finance and FinTech, i.e., the separate business works, the innovations and mechanical ideas connected and in addition the foundations concerned, is presented. This conceptualization bolsters analysts and specialists while orientating in the field of Digital Finance, takes into consideration the course of action of scholarly research moderately to one another, and empowers for the disclosure of the holes in research.

Digitization strongly affects the money related administrations industry. One noteworthy reason is that money related items are only founded on data. Models are installment exchanges or credit contracts which, rather than obtaining a vehicle, do much of the time exclude any physical parts. Another reason is that most procedures are essentially executed with no physical association such as online installment or 59

stock exchanging – exceptions are some physical types of connection, for example, customer warning. Because of late advancements in data innovation (IT), the progressing procedure of digitization isn't just prompting an expanding robotization of procedures, however to a key revamping of the money related administrations esteem chain with new plans of action (e.g., robo-guides) and new on-screen characters entering the market (e.g., Apple).

FinTech business continues

to

be growing

replacement idea maybe a

and flow across the

quantitative analysis study

respondents might give a additional scientific

logical

world however; albeit it’s a with additional range of

and information diode approach.

Surveys can

be bimanual bent the general public to induce their information on FinTech and would they adopt to those solutions rather

than money transactions for

his

or

her everyday desires.

Surveys can

be bimanual bent business specialists at intervals the retail sector to have interaction what their opinion wherever they feel FinTech is heading and can it disrupt their company or the business. can it collaborate with their current supplier will that culture exist there from management to directors? Regulation

is

another space that

will terribly attention-grabbing for any analysis.

The researcher already mentioned regulation united of the key problems for FinTech here in eire. Regulation may

be a

barrier

to

entry for

a

few incumbents

reluctant

to

enter thanks

to no management within the house and given what happened with the money crisis in 2008. There is also an absence of confidence from some new entrants. Firms like Grid Finance or FinTech startups generally will enter the market while not regulation preventing them. any study analysing regulation within the America, London and alternative firms with FinTech hubs as hostile country market would be attention-grabbing. A study on the advantages and necessity of regulation would be terribly valuable to lecturers and practitioners.

One of the foremost elementary things any business or firms especially ought to do is check up on the adoption barriers. As there are long lasting relationships between customers and the retailers, it becomes mandatory for the retailers to analyse the various barriers they might face while adopting the Fintech Solutions., FinTech start-ups got to ensure that once trying to form a replacement product or service for the market is to answer one key question. “Will individuals use it?” FinTech firms should raise themselves what do the shoppers want? however can you fulfil their needs? The key element part of any business is to specialize

in its’

customers.

The researcher feels that

60

a

combination of

quantitative

and

qualitative analysis around these adoption barriers might give essential analysis to FinTech new entrants, ancient service suppliers and customers themselves.

The researcher also points out that almost each day a replacement article or study comes go into regard to FinTech either on-line or within the media. Technology can solely still grow associated prosper within the future at an exponential rate. money technology or FinTech are going to be no completely different; this presents fantastic opportunities for any analysis in such a big amount of different avenues.

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6. Reflections 6.1. Introduction This segment of the report describes the analytically evaluated self-reflection of the researcher on the individual learning and the research experience during the process of writing this dissertation. A delineate assessment of the literature of various learning style model is presented, with a brief comment and investigation into what learning comprises. The various theories, tools and frameworks form the base for the critical evaluation of practice which also encourages and shapes the formation of a further new practice.

6.2. Learning Styles Learning styles are characteristic cognitive, and psychological behaviours indicating how the person who is learning perceives, interacts with, and responds to the learning environment (NASSP, 1979, cited in Fatt

and Joo, 2001, p. 24). Moreover, learning styles can be delineated as following a particular strategy in learning. Hereof, most students have a preferred learning style, but some may adapt it task-specific to 62

which is referred to as “versatile” learning style (Pask et al. 1977, cited in Sternberg and Zhang, 2011, p. 78). The element of learning styles was first used by Thelen (1954, cited in Hogg and Tindale, 2001, p. 536) while ascertaining the dynamics of groups at work. David Kolb (1974) dispersed the concept of learning styles within managerial circles and regarded the learning as a circular process with a series of experiences with cognitive additions. This cycle has four stages which include having a concrete experience, followed by observation and reflection on that experience which leads to the formation of abstract concepts and generalisations which are then used to test hypotheses in future situations, resulting in new experiences (Copley, 2011, pp. 84-85). This learning model relates to the dissertation where from the start the new ambiguous word of FinTech appeared. The researcher then began to read articles, newspapers journals and books around the FinTech concept and how it was changing the financial services industry which all forms generalizations and an analysis of this topic. We all recognise that learning is a continuous practice as the old expression translates “we learn something

new

every

day”.

Although as individuals we all learn something new every day, we don’t all learn in the same way. Peter Honey and Alan Mumford designed the learning style questionnaire back in 1982 to get an understanding and identify the different learning styles people had. Honey and Mumford (1986) later developed a psychological framework of individual learning styles that demonstrated the four stages identified by Kolb: activist, reflector, pragmatist and theorist. An activist is considered as a dynamic learner; a reflector, an imaginative learner; a pragmatist, a common-sense learner whereas a theorist symbolises an analytical 63

learner (Fatt and Joo, 2001, p. 25). The concept of learning styles preferences is based on the recognition that some individuals prefer learning in one way as compared with another. Moreover, the model proposes that individuals’ reactions to the same learning experience are strongly associated with the four stages of the learning cycle (Beard and Wilson, 2006, p. 34). With relevance to the above mentioned theories and observed personal study patterns, the researcher has the strongest tendency to the learning styles reflector and theorist. Particularly with regards to primary data collection and the analysis part of this dissertation, the researcher has always considered various possible angles and implications of certain situations to get to a wider picture and more in depth knowledge. This cautious pondering of experiences and the great obtained in-depth knowledge on diverse aspects of the FinTech and its impact on Irish retail sector lead to well thought out conclusions, but more time was needed than initially anticipated until these own points were stated. The theorist learning style also fits the researcher since there were problems faced during the dissertation, such as the difficulty of less available literature review and structuring the research based on minimal information available were always approached in a vertical, step-by-step logical way. The newness of the dissertation topic encouraged the researcher to question and probe ideas until a rationale scheme was established to understand the personalised gifts industry in a better business way.

6.3. Skills Developed The learning experience of the researcher began with the journey at Dublin Business School when staring Masters of Business Administration. The major learning process started while working on the thesis, which enables the researcher to gain in-depth knowledge about the subject related and acquire various skills to further develop them in life to be applied advantageously to achieve personal and professional ambitions. The choice of the topic – FinTech and its impact on Irish Retail Sector was not something very well known to the researcher. Therefore, to come out with good research study, the researcher had to read books, journals, articles and other available literature on the topic directly or in-directly. The retail industry in Ireland is vast enough for the researcher and thus required focus on a ingle aspect of the industry. The researcher opted for the improving financial technology and its impact on the Irish retail sector.

64

The researcher established early that a lot of of the reading would want to be done through newspaper articles and monetary services papers made from trade specialists. Upon reading these papers from economists,

politicians, monetary services

the analysis question

effectively

experts; it

the researcher

had

been obvious

would

have to

that so interview

as to

answer

these people.

These many interviews would offer compelling arguments in relevance to the semi-structured interviews involving a similar queries and draw conclusions from the analysis. The most bountied learning comes from the first analysis. Though the subject needed thorough reading, it had composition the interviews through networking and persistence that was a worthy expertise. Conducting the interviews was a major half in my personal development meeting new individuals, gaining completely different insights and cultures from different company levels. However, one individual views the planet is a remarkable platform as opposed to another. One of the foremost necessary skills the researcher learned, was to adapt to completely different questioner with a spread of different queries if the questioner

was a

touch short

on the

most semi

structured queries.

Learning from colleagues wasn't another eye opener to the masters. Liaising with alternative students and discussing the way to approach completely different methods to conducting analysis and structuring their work was a really bountied. Learning from peers et al. with expertise is significant to something we tend to neutralise life. Faculty generally instructed the scientist that building cohesive relationships with peers and making a networking platform was one learning curve which will not be forgetting. Planning & Preparation Planning and preparation is important to the bulk of everything we tend to knock off our lives. Benjamin Franklin's

statement could

not be more

true once it involves

conducting a

probe project sort

of

a thesis. Because the paper mentioned higher than one among the most analysis, with limitations of the minimal time within which the thesis had to be completed in. So coming up with and preparation was progressing to prove difficult. The college has students well ready as lectures handed out tiny analysis assignments throughout the course preparing all of us for what lay ahead. The exams that incurred at the end of every semester was another very important stepping stone to making ready students to arrange ahead with learning and analysis needed at intervals each module. All this led the researcher to develop time management and come up with skills once organizing interviews for

the thesis which

might be extraordinarily

difficult. Preparing

65

a

diary

to arrange for

the

months previous the analysis was one among the

foremost vital factors because

the researcher had to

balance the thesis with their own employment.

6.4 Application of learning in the future The Master of Business Administration has been a great academic journey and a worthy experience. Dublin Business school provided a learning platform that the researcher feels has provided him with an educational insight further as

a trade expertise data which

will support

his

career goals.

The process from an academic point of view has been very gratifying and encourages the researcher to see at alternative achievable goals of life. Project management has been an oversized proportion of the method and one that's long wanted within the corporate world. Because the Master in Business Administration in the DBS is created specially for of totally different nationalities which has made the the researcher learned a lot about various cultures. This cultural differences and the respect for each others culture has encouraged movement with work and this expertise will be employed in the work place. The corporates are these days practicing the ability to adopt every culture and employ people from different backgrounds. Therefore the researcher feels that the ability to respect and honour every culture learnt vide DBS would help him prosper in professional life.

Research This has got to be one of the largest skills that any student has learned and developed from partaking in a degree. The art of analysis provides a structured approach towards gaining essential info for a selected topic of interest. The researcher will use this essential new talent in his everyday work once searching for new business and customers. Attempting to urge a far better understanding of the trade within which the researcher works in. Analysis could be a vital talent once applying for the future jobs and employment in regard to a new trade or organization.

Networking As the researcher has already mentioned that networking has been a superb learning curve while carrying out the thesis. The best ability has got to be the art of networking from peers and colleagues within the course not to mention the high end economist, banking executives and ministers through the interviews. The researcher can use this networking throughout his career once meeting new folks as chance to 66

realize new business and for exciting career opportunity by adding them through social media sites such as LinkedIn.

New Career Direction The researcher has gained valuable information from the thesis process in respect to the Irish retail sector and the FinTech development within the same. This expertise can lead the researcher towards a new path to find new horizons and a beginning of a new chapter in his career. This overall expertise has provided the author with intensive information of FinTech and also the researcher’s ability to plans to continue his analysis at intervals within this industry for the longer term.

67

7. Bibliography 

A history of the department store (no date) BBC Culture. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150326-a-history-of-the-department-store



admin and Department of Business Enterprise and Innovation (no date) Retail Sector. Available at: https://dbei.gov.ie/en/What-We-Do/Business-Sectoral-Initiatives/RetailSector/



Arner, D. W., Barberis, J. N. and Buckley, R. P. (2015) ‘The Evolution of Fintech: A New Post-Crisis Paradigm?’, SSRN Electronic Journal. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2676553.



Bellis, M. (no date) Who Invented the Cash Register?, ThoughtCo. Available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/cash-register-james-ritty-4070920



Blumberg, B., Cooper, D. R. and Schindler, P. S. (2011) Business research methods. 3. European ed. London: McGraw-Hill Education (McGraw-Hill Higher education).



Branch, D. (2016) Consumers benefit from fintech boom—how can banks profit? | AlixPartners.

Available

at:

https://www.alixpartners.com/insights-

impact/insights/consumers-benefit-from-fintech-boom-how-can-banks-profit/ 

Bryman, A. and Bell, E. (2015) Business research methods. Fourth edition. Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, United States of America: Oxford University Press.



Buy Now, Pay Later: A History of the Credit Card (no date). Available at: http://www.randomhistory.com/1-50/008credit.html



Carrick, J. (2016) ‘Bitcoin as a Complement to Emerging Market Currencies’, Emerging

Markets

Finance

&

Trade,

52(10),

pp.

2321–2334.

doi:

10.1080/1540496X.2016.1193002. 

Chuen, D. K., Swee, G. and Jinrui, Z. (2015) ‘Emergence of FinTech and the LASIC Principles’, p. 18.



Desai,

F.

(2015)

The

Evolution

Of

Fintech,

Forbes.

Available

https://www.forbes.com/sites/falgunidesai/2015/12/13/the-evolution-of-fintech/

68

at:



EY - Fintech: Are banks responding appropriately? - EY - China (2015). Available at: http://www.ey.com/cn/en/industries/financial-services/banking---capital-markets/eyfintech-are-banks-responding-appropriately



fintech | Definition of fintech in English by Oxford Dictionaries (no date) Oxford Dictionaries

|

English.

Available

at:

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fintech 

Grant, P. (2016) ‘Getting Used to the Mobile Wallet’, BIC, 28 October. Available at: http://businessincalgary.com/october-2016/getting-used-mobile-wallet/



Grothaus, M. and Grothaus, M. (2015) You’ll Never Guess What The First Thing Ever Sold

On

The

Internet

Was,

Fast

Company.

Available

at:

https://www.fastcompany.com/3054025/youll-never-guess-what-the-first-thing-eversold-on-the-internet-was 

Swift History (no date) SWIFT. Available at: https://www.swift.com/about-us/history



‘IFS2020

Action

Plan

2018’

(no

date).

Available

at:

http://www.finance.gov.ie/updates/ifs2020-action-plan-2018/ 

Jakšič, M. and Marinč, M. (2015) ‘The Future of Banking: The Role of Information Technology’, p. 16.



Jarunee Wonglimpiyarat (2017) ‘FinTech and the evolving payment landscape’, Journal of Payments Strategy & Systems, 11(3), pp. 226–235. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib,cookie,url&d b=bth&AN=126901334&site=eds-live



Mason, J. (2002) Qualitative researching. 2nd ed. London ; Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications.



Mesropyan, E. (2017) How FinTech Impacts Purchasing Behavior and Enhances Business Efficiency, MEDICI. Available at: https://gomedici.com/fintech-impactspurchasing-behavior-enhances-business-efficiency/



Mobile Payment Solutions: Consumer Retail, Peer-to-Peer Payments, Wallet Market and

Forecasts

2014

-

2020

(2014).

http://www.webrtcworld.com/news/2014/06/23/7889492.htm

69

Available

at:



Nicoletti, B. (2017) The future of FinTech: integrating finance and technology in financial services. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan (Palgrave studies in financial services technology).



PricewaterhouseCoopers

(2016)

Emerging

Markets:

Driving

the

payments

transformation, PwC. Available at: https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/financialservices/publications/emerging-markets-driving-payments.html 

Saunders, M. N. K., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2012) Research methods for business students. 6th ed. Harlow, England ; New York: Pearson.



Shaping the Future of Irish Retail 2020 | Retail Ireland (no date). Available at: http://www.retailireland.ie/Sectors/RI/RI.nsf/vPages/Services_and_Information~Rese arch_-and-_Data~shaping-the-future-of-irish-retail-2020?OpenDocument



SUMMERS, L. (2017) What fintech is going to do to banking. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/bc846657-1af0-368e-a933-f14bc971d321



‘The History of E-Commerce, Online Shopping Evolution, and Buyers Behavior’ (no date) AltusHost. Available at: https://www.altushost.com/the-history-of-e-commerceonline-shopping-evolution-and-buyers-behaviour/



The Industry Handbook: The Retailing Industry (2004) Investopedia. Available at: https://www.investopedia.com/features/industryhandbook/retail.asp



Paul Volcker (2009) ‘The only thing useful banks have invented in 20 years is the ATM’. Available

at:

https://nypost.com/2009/12/13/the-only-thing-useful-banks-have-

invented-in-20-years-is-the-atm/ 

The Past And Future Of America’s Biggest Retailers (no date) NPR.org. Available at: https://www.npr.org/2012/11/19/165295840/the-past-and-future-of-americas-biggestretailers



the retail sector Meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary (no date). Available at: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/the-retail-sector



What is Cryptocurrency. Guide for Beginners (no date) Cointelegraph. Available at: https://cointelegraph.com/bitcoin-for-beginners/what-are-cryptocurrencies



What is FinTech? Definition and meaning, available at: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fintech.asp

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

Wilson, J. D. (2017) Creating strategic value through financial technology. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley (Wiley finance series).

8. Appendices 8.1. Survey Questionnaire Fintech and Its Impact on Irish Retail Sector Information sheet for Participants:Title of the Project: Fintech and Its Impact on Irish Retail Sector Aim of the research: Fintech refers to financial technology. It describes the use of technology to deliver financial services and products to consumers. This could be in the areas of banking, insurance, investing – anything that relates tos finance. The world and technology have upgraded with accepting Fintech as the new development in terms of making the use of money in a fast way and we aim to find out if this is widely accepted and what are the factors that impact the retail sector in the Irish market. I am Vivek Tuli, pursuing Master’s in International Accounting & Finance from Dublin Business School, affiliated to QQI, Ireland. What are the impacts of this research and what are the steps involved in the same? In this study, you will be asked to fill a questionnaire which will comprise of questions related to Fintech and its impact on the Irish retail sector. The ethical considerations that will be taken into account during this research are: 

The respondents will be 18 years of age or older



Respondents will not be asked to disclose any sensitive or personal information



The autonomy of the respondent will be kept confidential



No physical or mental harassment of participant will take place.

Time involvement of the participants 

The survey would require participants 5-10 mins to fill it out. 71

Rights of the Participants You may decide to stop being a part of the research study at any time without explanation required from yourself. You have the right to ask that any data you have supplied to that point be withdrawn. You have the right to omit or refuse to answer or respond to any question that is asked of you. You have the right to have your questions about the procedures answered (unless answering these questions would interfere with the study’s outcome. A full de-brie ng will be given after the study). If you have any questions as a result of reading this information sheet, you should ask the researcher before the study begins. Confidentility/Anonymity The data collected will not contain any personal information of the respondent. All the data collected will be safely uploaded to the Online drive of the researcher and will not be disclosed to any individual other than the researcher and his Professor. Further Information: I Vivek Tuli and Supervisor Dr.Heikki Laiho will be glad to answer your questions about this study at any time. You may contact me at [email protected] or my supervisor at [email protected] By selecting the option below, you are agreeing that: (1) you have read and understood the Participant Information Sheet, (2) questions about your participation in this study have been answered satisfactorily, (3) you are taking part in this research study voluntarily. I accept to fill out the Survey voluntarily Information of the Participant 1. Age Group of the Participant a. 18-28 b. 28-40 c. 40-60 d. 60+ 2. Gender a. Female b. Male 3. Occupation

72

a. Student b. Working Professional c. Self employed d. Other 4. Do you have a bank account? a. Yes b. No 5. How many times do you physically visit banks in a month? a. 0-4 times b. I do not visit bank 6. Do you use e-Banking Facilities? a. Yes b. No 7. How do you use e-banking facilities? a. PC b. Laptop c. Smart phones (Mobile, etc) d. Not applicable 8. Why you use mobile banking? Rate from 1-5 where 5 is the most important a. Online balance b. Ease of use c. Accessibility (Available check, funds 24/7 anywhere) transfer, etc. d. Increased Security e. Monitor and improve your spending habits more easily 9. Your preferred way of transferring money? a. Bank (over the counter) b. ATM c. Mobile Banking d. Fintech (Other than Traditional Banking) 10. Do you use Fintech products other than Traditional banking system methods? * a. Yes b. No 73

11. If Yes for the above question please mention the source of application 12. Do you use Fintech solutions on day-to-day basis? a. Yes b. No 13. Select the answer - Strongly Agree / Agree / Neither agree nor Disagree / Strongly Disagree a. Is Mobile banking easy to access and use over Physically visiting a bank? b. Does Fintech improve your daily shopping experience with Retail markets? c. Fintech solutions are widely accepted? d. Fintech solutions are open to fraud? 14. Which payment modes do you mostly use for day to day retail shopping? a. Cash payments b. Bank Cards (Debit/credit) c. E-wallet (Apple/Google pay) d. Non-Bank cards e. Crypto-currency 15. What are the problems in using Fintech solutions? Rate from 1-5 where 5 is for main problem * a. Need access to internet b. Online security threats c. Trust of Source, lacks Human touch d. Need to have knowledge and ability to use technology e. Regulatory uncertainty 16. What are the changes you would like to see in Fintech to be upgraded or changed? 17. What are the impacts of Fintech on Customer behavior? Impulsive buying 18. Concept of E-wallets/Mobile wallets and its impact on retails sector? Has it made your shopping experience Fast/Easy? 19. Is Cryptocurrency the future of Money trade? 20. Why are people still using Cash over Card payments as Fintech solutions are made to make the payments secure and easy? Is it a market sentiment that people hold with the usage of cash on day to day basis? 21. Are Banks/Financial institutes running an awareness program to promote Fintech Payment modes in the market? a. Yes 74

b. No c. Can’t say d. No idea 22. Is Fintech made for the Young generation alone? a. Yes b. No

75

8.2. Interview Questionnaire Hi!!! I’m doing my Thesis on “Fintech and its impact on Irish retail sector”. As you are working in retail sector. I would like to ask few questions from you!



How long you are working in retail sector?



What do you know about fintech i.e. digitisation in finance? (digitisation in payment modes)



What do you think are the essential need to implement digitised payment modes (fintech) in retail sector?



Will fintech (digitised payment modes) will impact the retail sector? If so, how will it impact the sector? (consumer shopping style- impulsive buying with use of cards)



In your view, what are the digitised payment modes customers mostly use now a days?



How likely is your company to respond in this emerging payment mode/ sector? (How are you integrating/ tackling the current changes in your business models?) (How you are preparing yourself with the new payment modes?) Are you training your staff for new system?



How efficient are these new digitised systems for your business? (save time, quick)



What do you think can be an exception for this models or new system from customer side? (old age people, less knowledge, less trust)



Have you faced any problems while using the new advanced systems? and by your customers?



Do you have any challenges with the current existing technology model?



Do you think digitised payment modes are the future of the Irish retail sector? (like customer acceptance to new digitisation)



What challenges do you think Fintech companies(payment) can face in extending their consumer base in Ireland? How can they manage these challenges?

76