Hilary J. Allen (American University – Washington College of Law) has posted Fintech and Techno-Solutionism (98 Southern California Law Review 761 (2025)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Silicon Valley-style technological innovation is ill-suited to address complex problems like financial inclusion and concentrated market power, yet promises abound that “fintech” can fix them. This oversimplified reduction of complex structural problems into technological puzzles has been critiqued as “techno-solutionism,” and it poses real dangers for public policy. When we start with the tech industry’s favored tools and then ask how to solve complex problems using those tools-rather than starting by defining the problem to be solved-it can distract policymakers from supporting real, structural solutions. Techno-solutionism can also deter policymakers from interrogating the limitations, and regulating the harms, of the proffered technological solutions.
This Article argues that not only are many fintech products themselves extremely techno-solutionist, but techno-solutionism is also impeding financial regulation’s ability to protect the public from fintech’s harms. It makes several contributions: First, this Article introduces into the financial regulation literature theories of how the law can perpetuate, and then be stymied by, techno-solutionism. Second, it comprehensively calls out the techno-solutionism inherent in many fintech offerings (particularly crypto), laying bare their harms and demonstrating where they are unable to solve the problems they claim to address. Such harmful nonsolutions do not warrant accommodative regulatory treatment—and yet, some policymakers have sought to give fintech products just that. This Article’s third contribution is a detailed exploration of techno-solutionism’s impact on U.S. financial regulatory policy as it pertains to fintech. This Article also uses this lens to consider how techno-solutionism might impact the regulation of AI in financial services.
Recommended.