Information Effect of Fintech and Digital Finance on Financial Inclusion during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Global Evidence

Abstract

The lockdown restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic led to increased interest in Fintech and digital finance solutions, and it gave people an incentive to join the formal financial sector by owning a formal account. People became interested in information about Fintech and digital finance solutions, and it led them to search the Internet to obtain information about Fintech, digital finance, and financial inclusion. In this study, we investigate whether interest in Internet information about Fintech and digital finance led to interest in Internet information about financial inclusion during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using global data that capture interest over time, we found that interest in information about Fintech was greater in developed countries while interest in information about financial inclusion was greater in developing countries during the pandemic. Interest in Fintech information was strongly correlated with interest in financial inclusion information during the pandemic. Interest in Fintech information had a significant positive effect on interest in financial inclusion information during the pandemic. There is a unidirectional causality between interest in Fintech information and interest in financial inclusion information during the pandemic. The implication of these findings is that interest in Fintech information is an important determinant of interest in financial inclusion information.

Digital loans and buy now pay later from LendTech versus bank loans in the era of ‘black swans’: Complementarity in the area of consumer financing

“…By the time state support for borrowers was implemented and supervisory regulations were modified, their lending policies had tightened, and the LT sector had prevented the financial exclusion of many existing bank customers (Waliszewski et al, 2023). Ozili et al (2024), claiming that the lockdown restrictions contributed to higher interest in FT and digital finance solutions, also highlight the role of shadow banking in the financial inclusion process. These results are consistent with the findings of Bao and Huang (2021), who additionally docu-ment that during the COVID-19 pandemic LT companies were more likely to extend credit to new and financially constrained customers.…”