Financial Markets Integration and the Consequences for Financial Stability

Financial integration, as part of the financial market union, implies closer interaction between global economies. The positive contribution of digitization can be found in the specialized literature, but it fails to provide an overview of the link between financial intermediation indicators and the use of digitization, taking into account the impact on the individual. In this sense, the motivation of this research consists in emphasizing therole of digital financial services in reducing poverty, having a beneficial impact on economic development and the economy welfare.The study relevance resides in capturing the Global Findex Index trend, by measuring the use of financial services every 3 years, starting in 2011. As a result, the research aims to analyze the financial intermediation degree, and, implicitly, digitization, based on a survey of 140 economies, using a Vector Autoregressive model, impulse response functions and the variance decomposition of the included macroeconomic variables.The research resultssummarize the fintech contribution in diminishingthe financial instability risks and outlining the policy implications for governments, benefits such as money laundering and reducing corruption.