Current concerns about environmental issues have led to many new trends in technology and financial management. Within this context of digital transformation and sustainable finance, Fintech has emerged as an alternative to traditional financial institutions. This paper, through a literature review and case study approach, analyzes the relationship between Fintech and sustainability, and the different areas of collaboration between Fintech and sustainable finance, from both a theoretical and descriptive perspective, while giving specific examples of current technological platforms. Additionally, in this paper, two Fintech initiatives (Clarity AI and Pensumo) are described, as well as several proposals to improve the detection of greenwashing and other deceptive behavior by firms. The results lead to the conclusion that sustainable finance and Fintech have many aspects in common, and that Fintech can make financial businesses more sustainable overall by promoting green finance. Furthermore, this paper highlights the importance of European and global regulation, mainly from the perspective of consumer protection.

In this study, we analyze the financial performance and the managerial abilities of religious mutual fund managers, implementing a comparative analysis with conventional mutual funds. We use a broad sample, free of survivorship bias, of religious equity mutual funds from the US market, for the period from January 1994 to September 2010. We build a matched-pair conventional sample in order to compare the results obtained for both kinds of mutual fund managers. We analyze stock-picking and market timing abilities, topics widely neglected for the specific case of religious mutual fund managers. We also study style timing abilities. As far as we are aware, this aspect has not been studied previously for religious mutual fund managers. Our results indicate that religious mutual fund managers underperform both the market and their conventional counterparts. This result is driven by negative stock-picking ability which could be generated by excluding ''Sin'' stocks from their portfolios. Moreover, they are not able to time the market or any of the following styles: size, book-to-market, and momentum.

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This study examines the performance of socially responsible stock portfolios based on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings in four regions: North America, Europe, Japan, and Asia Pacific. Our findings reveal that the financial impact of socially responsible investing is geographically dependent, varies over time, and relies on the screening dimension considered. Our results support the errors-in-expectations hypothesis in the European and Japanese markets, but any mispricing of socially responsible stocks faded over time as markets become aware of the financial implications of corporate social responsibility. In the Asia Pacific market, the results are consistent with the shunned-stock hypothesis. Furthermore, the results suggest that ESG value-relevant information is properly valued in North America. Overall, we conclude that different markets have gone through different stages with regard to their understanding of the impact of sustainable practices on firm valuations.

As far as we are aware, this study presents the first comparative analysis of the stock picking and market timing abilities of managers of conventional and socially responsible (SR) pension funds, and of their use of superior information. For the United Kingdom, the results obtained show a slight stock picking ability on the part of SR pension fund managers (although it disappears if multifactorial models are considered), and a negative market timing ability on the part of both SR and conventional pension fund managers (these results hold for multifactorial models controlled by home bias). In relation to the management styles, both conventional and SR pension funds usually invest in small cap and growth values, although it is the SR pension funds that are the most exposed to these styles. We also observed that, while conventional pension fund managers make certain use of superior information to follow stock picking strategies, managers of SR pension funds use superior information to follow market timing strategies.

This paper investigates the performance of socially responsible investment (SRI) portfolios compared to conventional investments. Adopting a retail investor's perspective, we provide evidence of SRI financial performance at the worldwide level as well as at the regional level, for five regions (North America, Europe except UK, UK, Pacific region and Emerging markets). Our results show that the performance of global SRI portfolios is higher than of conventional investments. Also, we observe differences in the financial performance of regional SRI portfolios in the overall period and, in particular, in bear markets. These results suggest that country-specific factors may affect the relationship between corporate social and financial performance.

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We analyse the herding phenomenon in the management style of Spanish equity funds. Using the methodology of Lakonishok et al. (1992) and Sharpe's style analysis (1992), we find interesting conclusions in the investment behaviour of fund managers, a barely-explored aspect, especially in the Spanish market.