The effect of fintech financing on firm performance: Evidence from emerging economies

Khusrav Gaibulloev, Ali Mirzaei, Tomoe Moore and Mohsen Saad

Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, 2025, vol. 103, issue C

Abstract: This paper rigorously examines the relationship between fintech financing and the financial and real performance of financially constrained firms in emerging countries. Using data from 45,770 firms across 20 countries for 2012–2020, we find that the performance of external-finance dependent firms is disproportionately higher when they operate in countries that receive more fintech funds. A host of robustness tests confirm our main finding. We further find that: (i) P2P lending and crowdfunding have greater implications on firm performance than balance sheet lending (ii) the relationship is particularly strong in young firms, and financially developed emerging countries with deeper disclosure of credit information, and (iii) specifically, in countries with greater banking penetration, there is evidence of a substitution effect between bank lending and fintech. Additionally, fintech finance increases capital investment, lowers borrowing costs, and boosts total factor productivity (TFP) to improve firm performance.

Keywords: Fintech financing; Financial constraints; Firm performance; Emerging economies; P2P lending; Crowdfunding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1042443125000915
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:intfin:v:103:y:2025:i:c:s1042443125000915

DOI: 10.1016/j.intfin.2025.102201

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money is currently edited by I. Mathur and C. J. Neely

More articles in Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().