Agile, Digitally Led Banks Turn FinTech Ambition Into Measurable Performance

Financial technology has transformed the way banks and financial institutions design products, serve customers and compete in digital marketplaces, yet a persistent question has remained: why do some organizations convert FinTech investments into real competitive advantage while others stall? A new study from Jordan offers a data-driven answer. Researchers report that three managerial capabilities — strategic agility, managerial digital orientation and innovation governance — significantly drive what they call FinTech capability maturity, and that this maturity in turn fuels both service innovation performance and organizational responsiveness. The findings, published in Discover Global Society, suggest that the decisive factor in digital financial transformation is not the technology itself but the managerial machinery that deploys it.

The research team, led by Manal Ali Almarashdah of Jadara University together with Ayman Abdalmajeed Alsmadi of Al Zaytoonah University of Jordan and Mohammad Ali Al-Afeef of Al Al-Bayt University, grounded their work in two complementary theoretical traditions: the resource-based view and dynamic capability theory. The resource-based view holds that valuable, rare and hard-to-imitate resources — such as an agile strategy process or a digitally committed leadership team — form the raw material of competitive advantage. Dynamic capability theory explains how firms sense opportunities, seize them and continuously reconfigure resources in fast-moving environments. In the study’s framework, strategic agility, digital orientation and innovation governance act as strategic resources, while FinTech capability maturity serves as the dynamic capability that converts those resources into measurable outcomes.

FinTech capability maturity is defined as an organization’s accumulated ability to systematically integrate, implement and continuously improve its use of financial technology — a progression that runs from basic digital adoption through data-driven innovation to fully integrated financial ecosystems. The authors argue that this construct fills a gap in the literature, which has often examined FinTech from the standpoint of customer adoption or technological implementation without identifying the organizational capability through which managerial decisions translate into performance. By positioning maturity as the central mediating capability, the study offers a unified explanation of how leadership actions produce long-term value in turbulent digital financial markets.

To test their model, the researchers surveyed 255 qualified informants working in Jordanian banks, financial institutions and FinTech organizations. Respondents included senior managers, digital transformation specialists, innovation managers, IT professionals, compliance officers and risk managers — all selected through purposive sampling to ensure direct knowledge of their organizations’ digital strategies and FinTech initiatives. The questionnaire contained 24 items across six constructs, adapted from previously validated measurement scales and reviewed by three academic experts before distribution. The sample size exceeded established requirements for partial least squares structural equation modeling, and the researchers assessed non-response bias and common method bias, finding no statistically significant differences between early and late respondents and full collinearity variance inflation factors below the recommended threshold of 3.3.

The analysis, conducted in SmartPLS 4, proceeded in two stages. The measurement models showed strong psychometric quality: all factor loadings exceeded 0.60, Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability values surpassed the 0.70 benchmark, average variance extracted exceeded 0.50, and discriminant validity was confirmed using both the Fornell-Larcker criterion and the heterotrait-monotrait ratio. The structural model was then evaluated with bootstrapping based on 5,000 subsamples, testing five hypothesized direct relationships between the constructs.

The results were strikingly consistent. Strategic agility exerted the strongest influence on FinTech capability maturity, with a path coefficient of 0.406, followed by managerial digital orientation at 0.344 and innovation governance at 0.207, all statistically significant. Together, the three predictors explained 63.6 percent of the variance in FinTech capability maturity — a substantial share for organizational research. In turn, maturity showed powerful downstream effects: it explained 34.8 percent of the variance in service innovation performance, with a path coefficient of 0.590, and 46.0 percent of the variance in organizational responsiveness, with a coefficient of 0.678. Model fit statistics, including a standardized root mean square residual of 0.073, fell within acceptable limits, and all inner variance inflation values remained well below collinearity thresholds.

Each capability contributes through a distinct mechanism, the authors explain. Strategic agility enables firms to perceive technological shifts early and rapidly reallocate resources toward emerging FinTech opportunities, accelerating the adoption of artificial intelligence, blockchain and big data analytics. Managerial digital orientation shapes where money and attention flow: digitally oriented leaders champion experimentation, prioritize technology investments and cultivate cultures of continuous digital learning, which smooth the integration of FinTech solutions into existing operations. Innovation governance — the formal structures, policies and oversight committees that direct innovation activity — aligns technology investments with strategy, manages the risks of emerging technologies and helps organizations navigate the stringent regulatory demands of financial services, a factor the authors consider especially important in highly regulated markets like Jordan.

The downstream consequences are equally consequential for practice. Financial institutions with high FinTech capability maturity can fuse AI, blockchain and analytics with their service processes, producing personalized offerings, faster delivery and richer customer experiences — the hallmarks of superior service innovation performance. Maturity also underpins responsiveness: real-time data, advanced analytics and integrated digital systems allow firms to detect market shifts, react to regulatory changes, launch products quickly and coordinate responses across departments. The study situates these findings in Jordan’s rapidly digitalizing financial sector, where the Central Bank of Jordan has encouraged digital banking, mobile payments and regulatory technology, and where banks face simultaneous pressures from cybersecurity requirements, financial inclusion programs and FinTech entrants.

The authors draw pointed implications for policymakers and executives. Regulators should create innovation-friendly frameworks, including regulatory sandboxes, that let institutions experiment with AI, blockchain and open banking while safeguarding stability. Central banks are urged to embed digital leadership training and national FinTech awareness programs in digital transformation strategies. Financial institutions themselves are advised to benchmark their FinTech maturity regularly, tie digital objectives to executive performance evaluations, establish cross-functional innovation committees spanning business, technology, risk and compliance, and invest in scalable platforms and data-driven decision systems. Collaboration among banks, FinTech firms, universities and technology providers, the study adds, can accelerate knowledge diffusion and raise digital competence across the entire sector.

The researchers acknowledge limitations that temper interpretation. The cross-sectional design cannot establish causality over time, the Jordanian context may limit generalizability to other economies, and self-reported survey data carries residual bias risks despite procedural and statistical safeguards. The study tested only direct relationships and three predictors, leaving room for future work on mediators such as organizational learning and AI adoption, moderators like environmental uncertainty, and longitudinal designs tracking capability development. Even so, the core message stands out with unusual clarity: in emerging digital financial markets, sustained advantage flows not from technology purchases but from the managerial capabilities — agility, digital leadership and disciplined governance — that turn FinTech potential into organizational performance.

Subject of Research: How managerial capabilities drive FinTech capability maturity and organizational performance in financial institutions

Article Title: Strategic agility and digital orientation as drivers of FinTech capability and organizational performance

Article References: Strategic agility and digital orientation as drivers of FinTech capability and organizational performance. (n.d.). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44282-026-00581-6

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44282-026-00581-6

Keywords: FinTech, strategic agility, digital orientation, innovation governance, dynamic capability theory, resource-based view, digital transformation, service innovation, organizational responsiveness, Jordan, banking, PLS-SEM