Is Fintech good for green finance? Empirical evidence from listed banks in China

Green finance has been regarded as an important strategy for the Chinese government to develop a green economy. Few studies have investigated the relationship of bank-level Fintech development in promoting the growth of green finance. To address this research gap, we have developed a bank-level Fintech index based on text mining and entropy methods using panel data from 59 Chinese listed banks from 2011 to 2020. We find that Fintech development can significantly promote the growth of green finance. In addition, the effect of Fintech development on banks with high net income or located in the eastern region is significantly larger than others, indicating that this influence has significant heterogeneity. Finally, we find that Fintech facilitates the growth of green finance by improving banks’ risk management capability and operations capability