This study aims to explore the themes of “Fintech” and “Financial Inclusion” since their inception using bibliometric analysis and pave the way for future research agenda.
The research is based on 351 publications from the Scopus database, covering timespan from 2007 to September 2023. The bibliometric analysis involves performance metrics (e.g. publication year, notable articles, leading journals and influential authors) and scientific mapping (e.g. word map analysis, three-field plot, bibliographic coupling, co-occurrence network analysis and thematic mapping). Tools used include Biblioshiny for performance analysis and VOSviewer for visualization.
The bibliometric analysis reveals the publication trends, most influential authors, articles, journals, countries and important keywords. Subsequently, it presents the network connections among them in the “Fintech” and “Financial inclusion” fields. It identified emerging research diversifications in the literature on fintech and financial inclusion, while performance and citation analysis reveal significant growth in publications since 2019. Science mapping identifies four major clusters of research themes: measuring financial inclusion, leveraging data and analytics, technological change through infrastructure and access and usage of financial services. The study emphasizes the importance of Fintech in enhancing financial inclusion, particularly in developing regions.
The limitation of this study is the extraction of research articles from a single database, Scopus. The study emphasizes the importance of Fintech in enhancing financial inclusion, particularly in developing regions. Future research could explore the role of Fintech in achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals and the G20 High-Level Principles for Digital Financial Inclusion. Additionally, there is a need to examine the behavioral changes induced by Fintech in traditional financial institutions and end-users across different economies.
This is one of the comprehensive studies to explore “Fintech” and “Financial Inclusion” from a bibliometric lens. The study highlights and discusses the recent themes in fintech and financial inclusion from broader social and managerial perspective.
