The expansion of fintech credit around the world is challenging the global banking system. This study investigates the interrelationships between the development of fintech credit and the efficiency of banking systems in 80 countries from 2013 to 2017. The findings indicate a two-way relationship between them. More specifically, a negative relationship between bank efficiency and fintech credit implies that fintech credit is more developed in countries with less efficient banking systems. Meanwhile, a positive impact of fintech credit on the efficiency of banking systems suggests that fintech credit may serve as a wake-up call to the banking system. Therefore, fintech credit should be encouraged by the authorities around the world.

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PurposeThis study is the first to investigate whether fintech credit influences bank performance, considering the moderating impact of bank regulations.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses an aggregate dataset of 73 countries from 2013 to 2018 to examine the nexus between fintech credit, bank regulations and bank performance. For robustness tests, the authors introduce different proxies of fintech credit, perform sub-sample analysis and substitute control variables, as well as conduct their empirical strategy to tackle potential endogeneity issue.FindingsThe authors document some significant findings. First, the authors’ evidence implies that fintech credit tends to reduce bank profitability, while improving bank risk-related performance. This suggests that as fintech grows, it competes with banks and takes some share of profits, but it also benefits banks in terms of stability. Second, stricter regulations contribute positively to bank stability. Third, the authors argue that the impact of fintech credit on bank performance may depend on the degree of banking regulation, and find that fintech credit would impose a more positive influence on bank stability as more stringent banking regulation is present.Originality/valueThis study is the first to investigate whether fintech credit influences bank performance, considering the moderating impact of bank regulations. The findings imply that fintech credit tends to be more beneficial when bank regulations become stricter. Therefore, they bring relevant implications to the regulators, as well as bank and fintech managers with regard to the potential cooperation.

This study explains the differences and variances in the efficiency scores of the Vietnamese banking sector retrieved from 27 studies published in refereed academic journals under the framework of meta-regression analysis. These scores are mainly based on frontier efficiency measurements, which essentially are Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) for Vietnamese banks over the period of 2007–2019. The meta-regression is estimated by using truncated regression to obtain bias-corrected scores. Our findings suggest that only the year of publication is positively correlated with efficiency, whilst the opposite is true for the data type, and sample size.