 Coping with the storm: The role of fintech in SME survivalNan Zhou and Ruohan Sun International Review of Financial Analysis, 2024, vol. 93, issue C Abstract: COVID-19 decimated the global real economy, to what extent did the epidemic jeopardize the survival of small and medium enterprises (SMEs)? This study examines 13,026,723 SMEs in China to assess their resilience under the application of fintech in the banking sector. Our findings suggest that the epidemic reduced the probability of SME survival and increased the negative impacts of excessive distance between banks and enterprises and a banking structure dominated by large banks on SME survival. Fortunately, fintech strengthens SMEs’ resistance to risk shocks. Specifically, when banks and enterprises are farther apart and the banking structure is dominated by large banks, the positive impact of fintech on the resilience of SMEs to risk shocks becomes more evident. This suggests that fintech reduces the impact of geographical distance on the interaction between banks and enterprises and inverts the traditional notion that large banks are unsuited to serving SMEs. Keywords: Fintech; Bank applications; SME survival; Bank-enterprise distance; Bank type; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:finana:v:93:y:2024:i:c:s1057521924000899 DOI: 10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103157 Access Statistics for this article International Review of Financial Analysis is currently edited by B.M. Lucey More articles in International Review of Financial Analysis from Elsevier |
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