> zero sum game of stock arbitrage.
By your definition insurance is zero sum as well. But people find that generally useful. Taking risk off of peoples hands has value even if a widget doesn’t come out the other end.
But why not just a reasonable product? Yes, what could that be, there cannot be something that is fairly priced and people really want, need, what just helps. Not today anymore!
> By your definition insurance
I know what you try there and on a very abstract level you are maybe slightly right, but PLEASE no, high level gambling (==milliseconds&millions) is not at all comparable to the insurance model in many regards, foremost maybe purpose for the community?
(and its pretty clear that fintech here sure doesn't mean the classical bank and modern "normal" payment system... ).
For example you can forbid futures and derivatives without forbidding good old stock trading.
However, it might be much more interesting, and societally more beneficial, to require that anyone trading in commodities futures must have, at all times, the facility to take delivery of the contracts. The upper limit of exposure for a trading desk would therefore be bound by the capacity of their physical infrastructure.
This is a weasel phrase. Insurance is high level gambling as well. They both use risk models to decide at what price they will sit on the opposite side of a trade for.
Decide where you really draw the line and if it’s time horizons that’s pretty arbitrarily stupid. Insurance uses re-insurance quite quickly to de-risk their own books so pretending trading within a minute vs daily/hourly is pretty silly.
Also, most “fintech” is not the “be the fasted to arb 2 exchanges” variety. It’s usually “be a market maker for products that you can relatively quickly price based on proprietary signals”. If speed is your only advantage, the cat and mouse game will wake you up one day getting beat to the order book on every trade.
> and its pretty clear that fintech here sure doesn't mean the classical bank and modern "normal" payment system...
Not sure where you got that from. All of this is interconnected. The “classical banks” are all participating in deep fast moving bond markets. JPM doesn’t send their orders to some old timey trader with a cigar and a bowler hat via telephone. They use fintech like the rest of the industry.