Emerging trends in FinTech and financial inclusion: A review and bibliometric analysis

Abstract

FinTech has enabled various financial institutions to reach a larger and more diverse customer base, thus making the unbanked population financially inclusive. This paper aims to systematically review academic papers on Financial Inclusion and FinTech. A combination of these two themes, followed by a bibliometric and network analysis, is carried out for the period ranging from 2012 to 2021, encompassing 219 Scopus publications. The analysis shows that this topic has recently acquired interest and has sufficient potential to grow in the future. Further, the cluster analysis highlights five themes for FinTech researchers, namely: Financial Digital Technologies and MSMEs; Financial Innovation and Sustainable Development; Information Systems and Regulation of Mobile Money; FinTech and Digital Financial Inclusion; FinTech Adoption and Financial Literacy. Moreover, it is observed that a study evaluating the influence of Financial Literacy on FinTech Adoption, which leads to Financial Inclusion, would fill other research gaps in this study.