There is a growing competition between banks and fintech not only in advanced economies, but also in the emerging markets. However, it is yet to be observed in Latvia to the same extent. This paper aims to evaluate fintech's level of development in Latvia compared to Europe. The paper identifies financial services using innovative technologies offered by fintech companies, analyses the advantages and disadvantages of these services in comparison with services offered by the traditional financial sector companies (banks, insurance companies, institutions involved in asset management and investment, etc.), and evaluates how prepared are consumers to use fintech services. This paper documents the results of the survey aiming to clarify how well-informed consumers in Latvia are about fintech services, their convenience, speed and safety, as well as the consumers' current satisfaction with banking services. The hypothesis of this paper is that Latvian society is not ready to use services provided by fintech, but prefers banking services instead. Survey results provide some evidence in favour of this hypothesis: they show that respondents are generally unaware about fintech services in Latvia and their associated innovations and new financial products. This paper makes several recommendations for managers of fintech enterprises, association of start-up enterprises and risk capital funds as well as state institutions.

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This paper considers the development of attractive strategies featuring cryptocurrency assets, considering their costs and potential risks. The object of analysis in this paper is cryptocurrency as an investment instrument. The main hypothesis of the research is that modern portfolio theory can be applied to cryptocurrency investments to design an investment portfolio with appropriate risk and profitability characteristics. The authors of the paper: (i) place cryptocurrencies in the context of modern financial market and financial technology development; (ii) develop assessment criteria for determining attractiveness of individual cryptocurrencies; and (iii) develop recommendations for creating an optimal cryptocurrency investment portfolio. In order to test the hypothesis, the authors performed calculations and used such methods of scientific research as the collection and processing historical values for cryptocurrency rates from July 2017 to January 2018, as well as data analysis for correlation, covariance, and return on investment. It is shown that a cryptocurrency investment portfolio should be created considering investor objectives and should obey a logical relationship between risk and profitability. Therefore, cryptocurrencies should not be correlated; an investment portfolio should be sufficiently diversified to minimize risk; cryptocurrencies should be liquid, that is freely exchangeable to a fiat currency on an appropriate exchange (e.g. dollars, euros). Investors should also consider regular rebalancing of the portfolio, which could help increase its profitability.

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In this article, the author will outline several stages of the process of determining optimal capital structure and will concentrate in particular on the first two stages of this process – analysis of company's borrowed capital and equity as well as the evaluation of the main factors, which influence capital structure. It is important to stress these preparatory stages, because successful operation of the company is built on properly understanding the relationship between risk and potential reward that is inherent in different alternatives of capital structure. These stages stress the importance of gathering reliable financial information about the company (enabling calculation of the ratios mentioned in the article) and performing risk analysis (relying in part on the external and internal factors described in the article) in order to decide on the optimal capital structure. The author cautions that rapid economics growth in Latvia will at least slow down over time. Managers need to take that into account, when planning capital structure and therefore avoid increasing their leverage to dangerous levels.