Global Fintech Lab · About
Understanding future money. Preparing with purpose.
Global Fintech Lab (GFL) is a research initiative centred on future money: why it emerges, whether its emergence may become inevitable, and why its possible designs require research and preparation today.
Our mission
We seek to understand the forces behind monetary change and develop knowledge that can inform the design, evaluation and long-term development of future monetary systems. This includes examining why advance preparation is necessary, what it should involve and which assumptions could prove mistaken.
A central part of this mission is studying how today's fintech and AI in finance can supply technical foundations and operational support, as well as security mechanisms and safeguards, for future money.
What we mean by future money
We use the term for possible new monetary forms, arrangements and systems, including their institutions and governance. We examine potential inevitability as a research thesis, specifying the conditions under which it might hold and the evidence that could challenge it. No single monetary design is presumed to be the inevitable outcome.
Methods serving the mission
Systematic information gathering, analysis, research and knowledge sharing help us investigate these questions. Developments in payments, digital banking, stablecoins, distributed ledgers, smart contracts and AI are selected for their relevance to future money.
Our proposed outputs range from focused evidence briefs to comparative studies and longer reviews. Their purpose is to build understanding and test ideas, with room for competing explanations and negative findings.
How we intend to work
We combine structured research with human editorial judgement. Automation may help organise sources and prepare drafts; its output is not independent evidence. TONG is the Editor-in-Chief. Material requires traceable evidence, human review and publication rights clearance before release, as set out in our editorial policy.
Editor-in-Chief
TONG
TONG serves as Editor-in-Chief of Global Fintech Lab (GFL), overseeing its research agenda, editorial direction, and publication standards. The editorial mission focuses on three interconnected questions: why future forms of money may emerge, why their development requires early research and preparation, and how advances in financial technology and artificial intelligence can provide the technological foundations and safeguards for future monetary systems. As Editor-in-Chief, TONG guides research priorities, reviews major publications, and ensures that GFL’s work remains focused on its long-term mission of understanding and preparing for the future of money.