The 5th Future of Financial Information Conference was held at HEC Paris, France on 15/16 May 2023. This was the first time the conference was held outside Sweden, marking an important milestone in its international evolution. Testament to its expanding reach, the conference attracted a record 339 submissions. This represented a 50% increase over the prior year, likely helped in part by the first and successful partnership with the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis offering a dual submission option.
The conference also featured the introduction of the Best PhD Student Paper Award, generously sponsored by BlackRock, highlighting the commitment to supporting novel research by early-career scholars. The inaugural award went to Rachel J. Nam, PhD student at Goethe University Frankfurt for the paper “Open Banking and Customer Data Sharing: Implications for FinTech Borrowers.” Congratulations!
The conference commenced with an engaging keynote by Bruno Biais on “Money and Information.” His exploration into the intricate relationship between financial resources and their dissemination ignited thought-provoking discussions and set the stage for a series of insightful sessions.
Over the next two days, the conference proceeded with twenty presentations grouped in ten sessions, plus a poster session featuring a further six papers. The format of the poster sessions, with six 5-minute “elevator pitch” presentations, followed by one hour of open discussions around the actual posters, provided for a refreshing break in between the more traditional segments. The content of the sessions, true to the conference’s theme, mirrored the changing nature of financial information, with growing emphasis on the value of data and data privacy, the environment as well as the use of artificial intelligence (AI), to name a few. In what was perhaps the most appropriately titled session of the conference “On which information to rely?”, the discussion revolved around the benefits, and potential pitfalls, of both old-fashioned sources, such as census data, as well as very new ones, such as social media.
The conference concluded with a keynote by Lin Peng on “Navigating the Information Landscape: The Role of Social Networks in Financial Markets” expertly summarizing the growing role of social media as a source of new insights on the interconnectedness and evolution of financial markets.
The 5th “Parisian” edition not only signified a geographical shift but also underscored the conference’s growth and pivotal role as a premier platform for exploring the multifaceted nature of financial information through intellectual exchange and diverse discussions. The future of FutFinInfo looks brighter than ever!
Dates: 15/16 May 2023
Venue: HEC Paris, France
Keynote speakers: Lin Peng (Baruch College) and Bruno Biais (HEC Paris)
Program chair(s): Michał Dzieliński (Stockholm Business School) and Thierry Foucault (HEC Paris)
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