About the Conference
The Lab for Inclusive Fintech (LIFT) at the University of California, Berkeley, the School of Business and School of Government at Universidad Adolfo IBAÑEZ (UAI) and the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) will lead an event on January 15-16, 2026 to provide an opportunity for researchers, industry leaders and implementing partners, and policymakers to explore whether and how digital financial technologies, their related regulations, and increasingly available data can benefit underserved populations around the world.
Conference Objectives
- Deliver relevant, insightful presentations on the current state of academic fintech research,
- Engage with industry and policy leaders on current innovations in products and regulations and the remaining challenges regulators face, and
- Facilitate partnership development between researchers and implementing partners on the next generation of financial services research.
Conference Themes
Papers/sessions may consider the following questions:
- How can technology be used to promote personal finance and financial well-being?
- What impact do technology-based personal finance education efforts have on household outcomes?
- What is the role of the public/private sector to strengthen personal finance education alongside technology advancements?
- What impact does technology have on access to financial products by lower income households? What impact has this access had on household welfare?
- How can public goods facilitate inclusion? Examples of this are credit registries, tax data for SME credit scoring, laws relating to receivables.
- How does access to digital remittances services for cross-border transfers impact the costs to, experience and well-being of immigrants?
Papers/sessions may consider the following questions:
- What impact does technology have on access to financial products by SMEs? What impact has this access had on firm-level outcomes?
- How can suptech improve SME compliance and productivity?
Papers/sessions may consider the following questions:
- How has open finance and more available data driven innovation in business models?
- What are the early lessons from open finance legislation in Latin America?
- How has open finance impacted consumer behaviour?
- How have changes in the openness and accessibility to basic infrastructures, such as telecommunications and digital and financial infrastructure (broadband Internet, mobile data services, data repositories, and payment and settlement services) impacted innovation?
Papers/sessions may consider the following question:
- What innovations in financial services and other digital platforms improve government efficiency?
Papers/sessions may consider the following questions:
- How have or can public policy address the risks of market concentration and create incentives for standardization, interoperability, and fair and transparent access to key infrastructures?
- What has the impact of interoperability in payment infrastructure on competition of digital payments and financial inclusion?
Call for Papers
Call for Papers Opens: May 7, 2025
Call for Papers Submission Deadline: June 30, 2025
Call for Papers Decision Date: August 1, 2025
Applicants are invited to submit their proposals through the Submittable portal.
Review and Selection Process
All submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis by a committee of UAI, LIFT, and CEGA representatives. Submissions will be assessed for relevance to themes and expected impact on conference objectives.