From disruption to design: regulating financial intermediation in the digital age
1. Technological and regulatory shifts in digital finance – 1.1 Research Objectives and Research Questions – 1.2 Literature Review – 2. Charting the fintech paradigm shift: from legacy trust to algorithmic accountability – 2.1 Reframing Intermediation: Beyond the Disintermediation–Reintermediation Dichotomy – 2.2 Digital Disruptors and the Erosion of Traditional Financial Intermediation Theories – 2.3 Catalysts of Change: Blockchain, AI, and the Reconfiguration of Financial Networks – 2.4 Legal Pillars on Shifting Sands: Trust, Fiduciary Duty, and Accountability in the Digital Era – 2.5 Regulatory Evolution Amidst Technological Turbulence: Comparative Perspectives and Doctrinal Responses – 2.6 Algorithmic Credit and the Persistence of Bias: Legal Challenges in AI-Driven Finance – 2.7 Regulation Code, Contracts, and Compliance: DAOs and the Emergence of Embedded Regulation – 2.8 Towards Adaptive Legal Architectures: Integrating Function Based Oversight in FinTech – 3. The digital economy and market reconfiguration: disintermediation versus reintermediation – 3.1 Structural Drivers of Digital Market Evolution – 3.2 Disintermediation and the Unbundling of Traditional Finance – 3.3 Reintermediation and the Rise of Digital Gatekeepers – 3.4 Regulatory Adaptation and Systemic Resilience in the Digital Era – 4. Reimagining financial oversight: algorithmic intermediaries, DAO, and smart contract governance – 4.1 Algorithmic Credit Scoring: Data, Bias, and Inclusion – 4.2 DAOs, AI Credit Scoring, and Systemic Risk Transmission Channels – 4.3 Smart Contracts and Autonomous Governance: Legal Personhood and Responsibility – 4.4 Embedded Regulation: Technology as Regulator – 4.5 Systemic Risk and Quantum Threats: Adaptive Oversight for Hybrid Systems – 5. Regulating innovation: MiCA, PSD2, and the FCA sandbox in digital finance – 5.1 Effectiveness and Flexibility in Governing Financial Innovation – 5.2 Legal and Jurisdictional Challenges in DeFi and Tokenized Systems – 5.3 AI Credit Scoring: Inclusion and Discrimination Risks – 5.4 Global Context and Harmonization Prospects – 6. Navigating innovation and systemic stability: embedded regulation and supervisory technologies – 6.1 Embedded Regulation: SupTech and RegTech in Proactive Oversight – 6.2 Harmonization Challenges and Adaptive Frameworks for Cross-Border Risks – 7. Policy frameworks for inclusive and adaptive financial innovation – 7.1 Embedding Technology and Supervisory Tools for Adaptive Governance – 7.2 Concluding Reflections: Towards Inclusive, Resilient, and Cooperative Financial Regulation.
La trasformazione digitale dei mercati finanziari, alimentata dallo sviluppo del FinTech, della blockchain e dell’intelligenza artificiale, sta incidendo in modo profondo sulla struttura e sulle funzioni dell’intermediazione finanziaria. Accanto a fenomeni di disintermediazione – che riducono i costi di transazione e favoriscono l’accesso diretto ai mercati – si assiste infatti alla nascita di nuove forme di reintermediazione, fondate su piattaforme algoritmiche, crypto-asset service providers, organizzazioni autonome decentralizzate (DAO) e nuovi gatekeeper digitali. Tali dinamiche mettono in discussione le tradizionali teorie dell’intermediazione finanziaria e rivelano i limiti dei modelli regolatori basati sull’inquadramento soggettivo degli operatori.
Muovendo da questa constatazione, il contributo propone di superare la dicotomia tra disintermediazione e reintermediazione, ricostruendola come un processo dinamico e ibrido che impone un ripensamento delle architetture regolatorie in senso funzionale e tecnologicamente neutrale. Attraverso l’analisi dell’evoluzione della disciplina europea e britannica – con particolare riferimento a MiCA, PSD2/PSD3, all’AI Act, al regolamento DORA e ai modelli di sandbox regolamentare della FCA – il lavoro mette in luce le potenzialità e, al tempo stesso, le persistenti criticità degli attuali assetti di vigilanza nel governo dei mercati digitali.
Lo studio adotta un approccio comparato e interdisciplinare, soffermandosi su alcuni casi paradigmatici, quali il credito algoritmico, la governance delle DAO e i modelli di embedded regulation, per valutare come i tradizionali pilastri dell’ordinamento finanziario – fiducia, responsabilità e doveri fiduciari – possano essere ricostruiti in ambienti automatizzati e decentralizzati. La tesi di fondo è che solo regimi regolatori adattivi, fondati sulla regolazione delle funzioni economiche e supportati da strumenti di RegTech e SupTech, siano in grado di conciliare innovazione, inclusione finanziaria e stabilità sistemica nell’economia digitale. In questa prospettiva, la regolazione non si configura più come un vincolo esterno, ma come una componente strutturale del disegno dei mercati finanziari.
The digital transformation of financial markets, driven by FinTech, blockchain and artificial intelligence, is profoundly reshaping the structure and functions of financial intermediation. While digital innovation has fostered new forms of disintermediation – reducing transaction costs and enabling direct market access – it has simultaneously generated new forms of reintermediation through algorithmic platforms, crypto-asset service providers, decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) and data-driven financial gatekeepers. These developments challenge the traditional theoretical foundations of financial intermediation and expose the limits of entity-based regulatory models.
Against this background, the paper argues that the apparent dichotomy between disintermediation and reintermediation should be reconceptualised as a dynamic and hybrid process, requiring a shift towards function-based regulatory frameworks and the progressive embedding of regulatory compliance within technological infrastructures. By analysing the evolution of EU and UK regulatory responses – in particular MiCA, PSD2/PSD3, the EU AI Act, DORA and the FCA’s regulatory sandbox – the study highlights both the strengths and the persistent gaps of current supervisory architectures in addressing algorithmic credit scoring, decentralised governance, smart contracts and emerging systemic risks.
Through a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, the paper examines key case studies, including AI-driven credit markets, DAO governance and embedded regulation models, in order to assess how trust, fiduciary duties and accountability can be reconfigured in algorithmic and decentralised environments. It ultimately contends that only adaptive, technology-neutral and function-oriented regulatory regimes, supported by RegTech and SupTech tools, can reconcile innovation, financial inclusion and systemic stability in the digital age. In this perspective, regulation is no longer conceived as an external constraint, but as a structural component of financial market design.