Green finance meets FinTech and AI: mapping a fast-growing research field

A systematic review and bibliometric mapping of 139 Scopus-indexed journal articles published between 2020 and 2025 shows that research linking green finance with financial technology and artificial intelligence has expanded rapidly, with growth accelerating after 2023. The review, published as an open-access article in Discover Sustainability, is the first to combine quantitative mapping of this literature with a structured framework of transmission mechanisms connecting digital finance tools to environmental outcomes. The study searched for articles whose titles explicitly connect green finance with FinTech and/or artificial intelligence, a design choice the author notes captures the explicit-title core of the field but does not provide exhaustive coverage of adjacent research.

The bibliometric analysis integrated performance analysis, keyword co-occurrence, country co-authorship, and co-citation mapping. One of the clearest structural findings is geographic concentration: China dominates the literature. Keyword co-occurrence analysis identified four thematic communities within the field: digital infrastructures, the sustainability–FinTech nexus, carbon markets and financial connectedness, and China-focused policy transition. This clustering suggests the field has consolidated around recognizable research streams rather than remaining a diffuse collection of loosely related papers, even as its conceptual structure and transmission mechanisms remain fragmented overall.

To organize how digital tools are thought to influence green finance, the review proposes a four-channel framework: information and transparency, risk assessment and pricing, financial inclusion and access, and RegTech and infrastructure. The synthesis found clear imbalances across these channels. Risk assessment and pricing emerged as the most empirically developed channel, meaning it has accumulated the strongest body of validated evidence. Information and transparency are prominent in the literature but less consistently validated, while direct evidence on RegTech outcomes and on micro-level access to green finance remains limited.

The author interprets these imbalances in relation to data availability, measurement tractability, and institutional context. Channels that lend themselves to quantifiable data and tractable measurement attract more empirical testing, while outcomes that depend on regulatory processes or household-level access are harder to observe and validate. As a review, the study maps and synthesizes existing literature rather than testing causal effects itself, and its findings describe the state of published research rather than establishing new empirical outcomes about FinTech or AI performance in green finance.

The review links the bibliometric structures to the proposed transmission mechanisms and develops a research agenda centered on three priorities: causal identification, measurement consistency, and cross-institutional validation. Because much of the existing evidence is concentrated in one geographic context and one thematic channel, the agenda points toward studies that can establish causal effects, apply consistent measures across settings, and validate findings across different institutions and countries. The author also emphasizes that the field’s rapid post-2023 growth means the literature is still young, and the identified gaps in RegTech evidence and micro-level access research represent open territory for future work at the intersection of green finance, FinTech, and artificial intelligence.

Subject of Research: Bibliometric review of green finance, FinTech, and AI research

Article Title: Powering the green transition with FinTech and AI from a green finance perspective

Article References: Ho, T. H. (2026). Powering the green transition with FinTech and AI from a green finance perspective. Discover Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-026-05095-4

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43621-026-05095-4

Keywords: green finance, FinTech, artificial intelligence, bibliometrics, systematic review, sustainability, carbon markets, RegTech, Powering, green, transition, finance