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TONG YU
Imperial College London and am on the academic job market during the 2024-2025 academic year. Welcome! I am a Finance PhD candidate at
My research focuses on Financial Intermediation and FinTech, with an emphasis on their economic impact on firms, entrepreneurs, households, and financial institutions. These topics intersect with multiple fields, including corporate finance, entrepreneurial finance, household finance, and banking. I am also interested in issues related to regulation of financial intermediaries.
While pursuing my PhD, I worked for two years at the Financial Conduct Authority.
Contact: t.yu18@imperial.ac.uk

REFERENCES
Ramana Nanda
Professor of Entrepreneurial Finance
Imperial College London
JOB MARKET PAPER
Data as Collateral: Open Banking for Small Business Lending [PDF]
Abstract: Open banking enables small businesses to share their bank financial data with potential lenders. I examine the effect of open banking on collateralization in small business lending. For identification, I exploit institutional features of the UK’s open banking policy that creates a discontinuity in firms’ eligibility to share data. Using a novel loan-level dataset covering the entire UK secured business loan market, I document that open banking eases the pledge of assets like accounts receivable and inventory. Firms eligible to share data are more likely to pledge such assets as collateral, thereby improving their access to credit. These effects are more pronounced for firms facing greater information asymmetry and those with greater information available to share. These findings highlight the role of open banking in reducing collateral constraints by mitigating information asymmetry.
PUBLICATION
Customer Data Access and Fintech Entry: Early Evidence from Open Banking [NBER] [CEPR] [BoE]
(with Tania Babina, Saleem Bahaj, Greg Buchak, Filippo De Marco, Angus Foulis, Will Gornall, Francesco Mazzola)
Accepted by the Journal of Financial Economics
Abstract: Open banking (OB) empowers bank customers to share transaction data with fintechs and other banks. 49 countries have adopted OB policies. Consumer trust in fintechs predicts OB policy adoption and adoption spurs investment in fintechs. UK microdata shows that OB enables: i) consumers to access both financial advice and credit; ii) SMEs to establish new fintech lending relationships. In a calibrated model, OB universally improves welfare through entry and product improvements when used for advice. When used for credit, OB promotes entry and competition by reducing adverse selection, but higher prices for costlier or privacy-conscious consumers partially offset these benefits.
WORK IN PROGRESS
Banks and Alternative Finance: Evidence from Payday Loan Market
Dissecting the Long-Term Performance of the Initial Coin Offering Market
(with Franklin Allen and Jae Hyoung Kim)
Artificial Intelligence and Financial Crime
POLICY PUBLICATION
Financial Lives 2022: Key findings from the FCA’s Financial Lives May 2022 survey [FCA]
(with T. Burrell, I. Clark, R. Cross, M. Elliot-Cooke, J. Hopkins, A. Martin, C. Nichols, E. Ripley, V. Semenova, G. Thomas, M. Watmough, J. Weir, V. Whiting), Financial Conduct Authority (2023)
TEACHING
2020 - 2024 Entrepreneurial Finance, MBA Program & MSc Finance Program
Teaching Assistant for Ramana Nanda
2020 - 2022 Corporate Finance for Practitioners, MSc Finance Program
Teaching Assistant for Rajkamal Iyer
2020 - 2022 Accounting & Corporate Finance, MSc FinTech Program
Tutorial Lecturer & Teaching Assistant for Clara Martinez-Toledano
Teaching Evaluations: 4.4/5.0 (2020/21), 4.7/5.0 (2021/22)
2021 - 2022 Venture Capital & Growth Finance, MSc Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Management Program
Teaching Assistant for Miguel Meuleman
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