Abstract: Financial technology is of vital importance to the promotion of the high-quality development of enterprises. Based on the data of China’s A-share listed companies, this paper comprehensively explores the impact of financial technology on enterprises’“shifting from the real to the virtual”. The results show that the development of financial technology has significantly inhibited enterprises’ “shifting from the real to the virtual”. The mechanism test shows that financial technology has influenced enterprises’ behavior of “shifting from the real to the virtual” through two channels: competition effect and cost effect. Financial technology has reduced the rate of return of corporate investment in financial assets and the management costs of corporate financial, which has promoted corporate investment in the real economy and inhibited the enterprises’ “shifting from the real to the virtual”. In addition, compared with state-owned enterprises, enterprises in the central and western regions, and enterprises located in the regions with a lower degree of marketization, the inhibiting effect of financial technology on the“shifting from the real to the virtual” of the non-state-owned enterprises, enterprises in the eastern region, and enterprises in the regions with a higher degree of marketization enterprises is much more significant. Moreover, the development of financial technology has mainly restrained the investment of enterprises in speculative financial assets, but the impact on the investment of enterprises in value-preserving financial assets is not obvious. Therefore, it is necessary to continuously increase the support for financial technology, let big data, artificial intelligence and other technologies play an active role in supporting the financial technology. And at the same time, give certain policy preferences to the central and western regions, so as to continuously enhance the enabling effect of financial technology to the real economy.

Key words: financial technology, shifting from the real to the virtual, competitive effect, cost effect