What's up With "Fintech"?

It's been a while, so it's time for a rant (in this case gentle, with no names named).

Discussion of financial technology ("fintech", as it's called) seems to be everywhere these days, from business school fintech course offerings to high-end academic fintech research conferences. I definitely get the business school thing -- tech is cool with students now, and finance is cool with students now, and there are lots of high-paying jobs.

But I'm not sure I get the academic research thing. We can talk about "X-tech" for almost unlimited X: shopping, travel, learning, medicine, construction, sailing, ..., and yes, finance. It's all interesting, but is there something extra interesting about X=finance that elevates fintech to a higher level? Or elevates it to a serious and separate new research area? If there is, I don't know what it is, notwithstanding the cute name and all the recent publicity.

(Some earlier rants appear to the right, under Browse by Topic / Rants.)