Abstract:  Is consumers' awareness of the rule of law promoting or constraining China's FinTech innovation? Under the background that the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries have promoted their own FinTech innovations, this issue is not only a theoretical issue, but also a practical issue related to the global rise of China's finance. Therefore, based on the two major psychological theories of challengethreat and coldhot system, and using the unbalanced panel data of 31 provinces and cities in China from 2009 to 2017, this paper studies this issue with differential GMM model. The results show that the level of consumers' awareness of the rule of law shows an invertedU shape nonlinear relationship with the quantity or the quality of FinTech innovations; too weak or too strong consumers' awareness of the rule of law is not conducive to the improvement of the quantity and quality of FinTech innovation. Therefore, we should follow the principle of moderation when protecting consumers. Further analysis shows that consumers' awareness of the rule of law also indirectly affects the quantity of FinTech innovations through the construction of industry self regulatory organizations and research institutions, and the credit gap. Finally, some suggestions are put forward to promote fintech innovation in China.

Key words:  , awareness of the rule of law, consumer protection, FinTech innovation, invertedU shape

摘要： 消费者法治意识是促进还是约束了中国金融科技创新呢？在美英等国纷纷促进本国FinTech创新的背景下，这一问题既是一个理论问题，也是一个事关中国金融全球崛起的现实问题。为此，本文依据挑战/威胁、冷/热系统两大心理学理论，基于2009—2017年中国31个省市区非平衡面板数据，采用差分GMM研究这一问题。结果表明，消费者法治意识水平与FinTech创新数量、质量之间均为倒U型非线性关系，过弱或过强的消费者法治意识均不利于FinTech创新数量、质量的提升。因此，在保护消费者时，应当遵循适度原则。进一步分析发现，消费者法治意识还通过行业自律组织和研究机构建设、信贷缺口，间接影响FinTech创新数量。最后，本文就促进中国FinTech创新提出了相关建议。

关键词: 法治意识, 消费者保护, FinTech创新, 倒U型