Editorial Board

A Refereed Monthly International Journal of Management

Fintech Innovations: A Bibliometric Study& Future Research Agenda

Dr. Vijay Joshi

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow,

State Bank Institute of Leadership,

Kolkata, West Bengal, India

Email: pdrf3.sbil@sbi.co.in

Abstract:

This bibliometric study aims to understand the academic developments in Financial Technology (Fintech) based innovations. The technological disruption post-pandemic era has propelled researchers to mull over the disruptions caused by fintech firms. Disruptive Fintech innovations and their impact on the Banking industry are one of the grand challenges to be contemplated by researchers. Bibliometric tools and techniques as a methodology have been adopted to delve deeper into fintech innovations. Web of Science database revealed 211 documents based on the keyword search for2017 to 2022. After applying inclusion criteria like Web of Science Categories Business, Management, Economics, and Business Finance, total of 124articles were selected as the final sample to review the fintech innovations. The Bibliometrix package of r (programming language) has been used to process the data. The bibliometric study revealed six themes (1) Innovation, (2) Impact, (3) Adoption, (4) Management, (5) Firms, and (6) Strategy; as potential areas for further exploration. One of the theoretical groundings of fintech innovation is disruptive innovation. The study provides input to policymakers, working professionals and academicians.

Keywords: Fintech Innovations, Bibliometric study.

Introduction:

The tremendous rise in the number of scholarly papers on Fintech has drawn the attention of many. It is so as the disruptive capabilities of fintech firms have challenged conventional banks and non-banking financial institutions (NBFCs). The innovative products and services launched by fintech firms are gaining momentum. FinTech refers to the use of digital technology in financial services and is responsible for the substantial disruption occurring throughout the financial sector. There has been a paradigm shift due to a new collaborative business model. Many start-ups are unbundling financial services and challenging incumbents (Basole& Patel, 2018).

The increasing digitalization of financial markets significantly influences customer-centric financial products and services. New entrants, such as FinTech and BigTech companies, actively participate in the financial marketing of cutting-edge technology and forward-thinking business models (Tanda &Schena, 2019). It creates undue pressure on incumbents. As Fintech is in a growing stage, it will be fair to say that the digital transformation of financial services is the key growth engine. Firms cannot achieve their strategic and operational goals without an adequate technological base (Adler &Shenhar, 1990). However, research on Fintech is not established, and the literature is loosely connected without any research agenda. There is a need for research on Fintech innovations and how it can be streamlined theoretically and managerially in management literature. The literature review as a research approach is becoming more critical in today’s digitally advancing academic environment. Traditional literature review techniques often lack completeness and rigour and are carried out according to predetermined processes (Snyder, 2019). It is generally accepted that bibliometric approaches are helpful as auxiliary tools for decision-making in prioritizing research and tracing the development of scientific knowledge (Donthu et al., 2021; Hubert, 1977; Jackson, 1980; Milian et al., 2019; Rowe, 2014).

This bibliometric study aims to map and analyse academic writings on fintech innovations to make them discernible and understandable within the banking and financial space context.The use of bibliometrics is slowly being expanded to include all academic fields. In a time when there is a strong focus placed on empirical contributions, which is resulting in the production of many fragmented, and contentious research streams. The bibliometric approach of the literature review is primarily meant for scientific mapping of journal articles (Aria &Cuccurullo, 2017; Donthu et al., 2021). Rowe (2014) has proposed four significant dimensions or typologies for literature reviews.In the present paper, Rowe’s typologies have been adopted to uncover the body of knowledge on fintech innovations. The four typologies are (i) academic goals, (ii) problem breadth, (iii) systematically explaining the inclusion criteria, and (iv) utilizing argumentative strategy.

The article is divided into five sections. Section one discusses the introduction about the publication on fintech innovations, the need to review available literature and the gap. Section two deals with materials and methods adopted to carry out the study. Section three covers the bibliometric analysis of the sampled articles. Section four summarizes and concludes the significant findings, and last but not the least, section five presents limitations and future research directions.

Materials & Methods

The bibliometric methodology generally refers to applying quantitative methods such as citation analysis to bibliometric data. These methods include units of publication and citation (Donthu et al., 2021). Many different models have been developed to describe the productive capacity of scientific discourse, such as journals (Chen &Lelmkuhler, 1986; Drott & Griffith, 1978; Garfield, 1980; Hubert, 1977). The meaning of the word "bibliometrics" is found in extant literature (Broadus, 1987; Ikpaahindi, 1985). By adopting the typologies for literature reviews proposed by Rowe (2014), an attempt has been made to uncover the topical foci with rigour (Brocke et al., 2009; Jackson, 1980; Müller-Bloch & Kranz, 2015). Aria &Cuccurullo (2017) proposed a “bibliometrix tool” (programmed in R) for performing comprehensive science mapping analysis.

Figure 1 shows the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The web of science database has been used to conduct this bibliometric study. The keywords have been used as “Fintech and innovation”. We adopted the inclusion criteria “business, management, economics and business finance”. The other social sciences disciplines were excluded. The total period was all years, but for this study, the time frame was 2017 to 2022 as the fintech development has taken place during this period. The 124 articles as the final sample were selected.

Search Criteria:

Keywords: fintech and innovation (All Fields) and English (Languages) and Article (Document Types) and Business or Business Finance or Economics or Management (Web of Science Categories).

Figure 1: Selection Criteria

1. Data Analysis

Table 1 shows the key information about the web of science database search.

Source: Biblioshiny (Bibliomatrix r Studio Package)

Table 2 shows the total number of papers published from 2017 to 2021. The number of publications is increasing year by year with 103% growth rate.

Table 2: Annual Scientific Production

Source: Compilation from WoS database

Figure2 shows the country-wise publication details and network visualization. We can see that the universities from China, the USA, and the UK are the major contributors to academic publications.

Figure2: Country Wise Publication Details: Network Visualization

Source: Compilation from vosViewer

Table 3 and figure 3 show an account of sources of publications and total articles. According to Bradford’s Law of Scattering (Andres, 2009; Drott & Griffith, 1978), the journal listed from Rank1 to 8 fall into zone 1 with 70 publications. The rest of the publications fall in zone 2.

Table 3: Sources of Publications

Source: Biblioshiny (Bibliomatrix r Studio Package)

Figure3: Bradford’s Law of Scattering

Source: Biblioshiny (Bibliomatrix r Studio Package)

Below figure 4 shows the prominent university in publishing on fintech innovation.

Figure4: Most Relevant Affiliations

Source: Biblioshiny (Bibliomatrix r Studio Package)

Table 4 and Figure 5 shows the corresponding authors’ country. We can see that China, USA,UKand Australia are the major contributers to the theme of fintech innovation.

Table 4: Top 10 Corresponding Author’s Country

Figure 5: Corresponding Author's Country

Source: Biblioshiny (Bibliomatrix r Studio Package)

Word cloud is shown in figure 6. A "word cloud" is a graphical depiction of the frequency of individual words. When a term is found inside the text being analyzed more often, it results in a more excellent representation of that term in the picture created. Word clouds are increasingly being used as a straightforward instrument to determine the primary topic of written content.

Figure6: Word Cloud

Source: Biblioshiny r Package

Figure 7 discusses the thematic analysis of the selected articles. The figure has been obtained from the Biblioshiny r studio package. Thematic analysis is locating, investigating, and reporting on recurrent topics or themes within a body of data under study. It organizes data collection and explains it in rich detail (Braun & Clarke, 2006).It is possible to investigate the conceptual development of a study topic using a thematic map derived from co-word network analysis and the clustering of author keywords. Each cluster's centrality value, density value, and occurrence (represented by the bubble size) are used to depict author keyword clusters on the map(Andres, 2009; Mas-Tur et al., 2021). The below map can then be used to make inferences about the structure of the field. The results are interpreted based on the relative positions of the points and their distribution along the dimensions; as words are more similar in distribution, the closer they are represented on the map.

Figure7: Thematic Map

Source: Biblioshiny r Package

There are two distinct methods to describe what is known as a cluster. It may be seen as a point inside a more extensive network, one distinguished by its location, which means the collection of connections that connect it to other clusters and issues within the more prominent network position. Second, it may be seen as a collection of words that are related to one another; in and of itself, it defines a network that is either more or less dense, as well as one that is either more or less coherent and solid (Courtial et al., 1991).

Figure 8: Thematic Network Map

Table 5: Clusters

Below, Figure 8 presents the conceptual structure of the keywords connected with the publications on fintech innovations included in this research. It condenses a large amount of data containing several keywords into a space with a lower dimension, producing an understandable graph that is either two or three-dimensional. It uses the distance between the keywords to show the degree of similarity between them. The closer a keyword is to the centre of the circle, the more attention that keyword has received during the last several years (Xie et al., 2020). The significance of the findings is determined by looking at how the points are distributed throughout the dimensions and their relative locations. When two words have a distribution that is more like one another, the map will reflect them more closely (Aria &Cuccurullo, 2017).

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Insert Table 6: Review of Selected Papers

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Figure. 8: Conceptual Structure Map

Source: Biblioshiny r Package

Summary & Conclusion

This bibliometric study intends to map the academic output during 2017-2021. This review article attempts to answer the following questions: what is the trend of scholarly publications in fintech innovation? Which county and university are contributing the most to developing literature? What are the major themes regarding fintech innovations in Finance and banking? The study followed Rowe’s (2014) approach to uncovering the body of knowledge on fintech innovation. Table 6 tracks the argumentative strategy regarding theoretical background, methodology and outcome (refer to table 6).

It can further be argued and concluded that financial market flaws, i.e., particularly information asymmetries, market segmentation, and transaction costs, restrict financial access to one stratum of society. In contrast, emerging Fintech allow financial inclusion (Demir et al., 2022).Value creation is done with the help of technological disruptions in banking and financial services. Conventional financial service providers are facing stiff competition from Fintech and BigTech firms. There are opportunities and space available in financial markets because many untapped consumers may not have a credit history but have mobile phones and internet access. Fintech firms are exploring the opportunity by delivering financial services on mobile phones. Consumer adoption is further fuelling tech-based disruptions.

Limitations and future research directions

Academic writings are unique in nature but not without certain limitations. (i) The present study is based on a search on the web of science database. Future studies can also incorporate the Elsevier database and others to have a more refined and extensive literature search. Since technological disruptions are a recent phenomenon, not much literature could be explored. (ii) Over a period, as the trend indicates, publications will be done to advance the body of knowledge; future research can be directed to country-specific fintech innovations. (iii) The regulatory framework and market environment deviations may cause different types of financial products and services. Researchers can consider the regulatory sandbox a potential area for further exploration. (iv) The present study is limited to bibliometric review only. Future research can be based on empirical evidence ina different context. (v) There is ample scope to explore consumer adoption and fintech services. The present study is helpful for policymakers, banks and fintech professionals, researchers, and academicians.

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