Assessment of the impact of Sustainable Development Goals indicators on the sustainable development of FinTech industry

Abstract

FinTech industry development creates the conditions for financial inclusion, which in turn enables the achievement of 8 out of 17 SDGs towards global sustainable development. Accordingly, to achieve sustainable economic development, full financial inclusion and the SDGs, it is crucial to achieve sustainable FinTech industry development and clarify its relationship with the SDGs, since research to date is limited and examines the connection in the narrow sense. Therefore, this paper presents the pilot study on the contribution of SDG indicators to the sustainable FinTech industry development, indicates the main drivers and provides recommendations for further development of FinTech industry in terms of sustainability. The pilot results of expert assessment show that SDG 8 “Decent Work and Economic Growth” contributes to the sustainable FinTech industry development the most, followed by SDG 9 “Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure”, SDG 4 “Quality Education”, SDG 16 “Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions”. The pilot results of the multicriteria assessment show that out of 15 European countries, Lithuania has the most sustainable development in terms of FinTech industry, followed by Estonia, Denmark, Finland. These results suggest that Northern Europe is the most suitable European region for sustainable FinTech industry development.