Fintech Book Club: 10 Books to Read or Gift this Season

Fintech is a relatively new industry. Fintech startups started dotting the horizon at the dot-com boom and have continued to make history – shaking up the traditional banking, financial services, and insurance industries. While “fintech” as a term didn’t emerge until 2018, the concept goes back until at least the 1970s. The “fintech book club” might not exist yet, but there’s no shortage of fiction and non-fiction options for readers who are interested in blending banking, lending, and insurance with the latest technology.

Here we’ve curated some of the best picks across money, startups, and tech. Fintechs, insurance pros and brokers alike will want to dig into these juicy reads...Or they would, if they weren’t so busy changing the face of our financial system.

1. The Price of Time by Edward Chancellor 

In Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation, Edward Chancellor took on the origins of financial speculation (which is also an excellent read). His latest volume looks at the concept of interest – conceptually, historically, and in practice. 

2. The Spider Network by David Enrich

Enrich is a journalist, and he won awards for his series “The Unraveling of Tom Hayes.” The Spider Network is a continuation of the story – and Enrich’s colourful characters and high stakes intrigue make it a fun read. 

3. The PayPal Wars by Eric M. Jackson

The brutal merger of what would ultimately become PayPal was touched on in Ashley Vance’s biography of Elon Musk. The whole story is covered in The Paypal Wars, the true story of Musk, Theil and the birth of PayPal: an early fintech “origin story” that you won’t be able to resist. 

4. The Third Door by Alex Bananyan

The Third Door is a rare mix of self help and storytelling. The premise is simple: how do you “get in” to the club? You can get in through the front door, you can have connections who get you in through the back…or you can find your own. The Third Door offers pitched, eager storytelling that follows Bananyan on his wild quest to meet people, and you can’t help rooting for him on the way. 

5. Billion Dollar Whale by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope

A must read for anyone interested in KYC, AML, or the psychology of scams, Billion Dollar Whale is a fast paced, stranger than fiction scandal of Jho Low and fraud on a massive scale. 

6. Dark Pools by Scott Patterson

You’ve likely heard of Flashboys, by Michael Lewis. Before it, though, there was Dark Pools: an equally riveting journey into the technology and brains behind Josh Levine’s Island ECN. Dark Pools covers similar topics to Flashboys – but you might just find you like Dark Pools better. 

7. The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone

It wouldn’t be a book club without  a biography, and Jeff Bezos is a fun and timely subject. Stone’s reporting provides one of the clearest looks at how a tech company scales, builds, and grows into goliath scale. 

8. Capitalism without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy by Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake

Capitalism without Capital was written with pre-AI sentience about where the world was headed: its authors talk about how value has shifted from physical factories, machinery, and equipment to intangible assets like software, IP, and data. It’s an interesting read that would be even more fun to visit today. 

9. The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention by  William Rosen

Fintech buffs interested in todays’ “AI Revolution” might be interested in learning about the last time technology galloped ahead. The Rocket steam engine got society out of its last “Malthusian trap” (humankind regularly invents faster, more productive ways of living, only for the population swell to consume all of the surplus) – will AI be its equivalent? It might not be a “tech book,” but Rosen’s careful narrative will give readers something to think about.

10. Against the Gods by Peter L. Bernstein

Bernstein offers a fun historical review on the building blocks of capitalism: probability, risk analysis, statistics, and the gamble, with a rich cast of characters to match. Don’t be fooled by its dense subject matter – Against the Gods is readable, accessible, and very fun.