The COVID-19 epidemic has accelerated the digital economy’s pervasiveness throughout the Chinese economy, leading to a sharp rise in demand for “contactless” services in the financial industry. We examine the digital transformation of the Chinese banking industry using the DEA–Malmquist index method, supplemented by a distance function and time to compare the dynamic changes of productivity. Our paper then conducts an empirical study on the digital transformation of Chinese commercial banks based on their improvements in efficiency. We analyze banks with superior efficiency in science and technology investment and evaluate their digital maturity and digital transformation experience. Results show that digitalization investment has contributed to substantial production efficiency improvement for commercial banks; however, heterogeneity exists across banks. We further advocate a path for banks’ digital transformation based on theoretical research and empirical digital transformation experience in this area.

The digital economy is a driving force for economic growth in various countries. When the digital economy is deeply integrated with Internet companies, it also brings about great challenges to corporate innovation. This paper used the DEA-Malmquist model to measure the efficiency of the science and technology investment of 30 Internet-listed companies in China from 2011 to 2019, constructing a long-distance function and displaying the dynamic changes in the comparative efficiency of time and space. This research evaluated the digital maturity and digital experience of Internet companies under the continuous investment of science and technology, concluding that the investment in science and technology under the digital economy can improve the innovation efficiency of China’s Internet companies. Research shows that technology investment has a significant positive impact on the digitalization of Internet companies, but there is heterogeneity among different companies. Based on the theoretical research in this article and the empirical experience of in-depth digitalization, it also provides path suggestions for the in-depth development of digitalization of Internet companies. This research has important theoretical significance and practical value for further promoting the development of Internet companies and promoting the application of the digital economy.