Description:

Speaker Matheus Sampaio

Title: The Ripple Effects of Floods on Long-term Financial Technology Adoption

Abstract: Can adversity lead to long-term financial technology adoption? Can the adoption of one technology lead to the adoption of other financial technologies? Using identifiable data on bank transactions of every person and firm in Brazil, we studied how floods affect the long-term use of a new transfer technology, Pix. We find that, after a flood, the number of active Pix users increases by 3% for people and by 5% for firms. Moreover, we find evidence suggesting that people and firms adopt other types of financial technologies. Firms started accepting other forms of payment such as credit and debit cards, while people started to increase their use of digital bank accounts.