Sustainable FinTech and Financial Inclusion: Global Research Trends and Thematic Evolution (2015–2024)

Sustainable FinTech is the integration of financial technologies with environmental, social and governance principles to foster responsible innovation in financial systems. Financial inclusion, meanwhile, focuses on ensuring that individuals and communities, especially the underserved ones, have equitable access to affordable and effective financial services. Together, these domains hold significant potential to drive inclusive and sustainable financial development. This article aims to identify and analyze FinTech innovations that promote sustainable finance and explore how these technologies support financial inclusion, particularly in South Asian regions. A total of 711 documents were retrieved from the Scopus database for the period 2015–2024 and examined using the Bibliometrix (version 5.0.1) and Biblioshiny (version 1.11.1) packages in R (version 4.4.0). The analysis reveals increased research attention to the areas since 2016, with notable contributions from China, the UK, the USA, India and Malaysia. Thematic analysis highlights core research areas in digital finance, sustainability and FinTech adoption, with sustainability-linked finance emerging as a motor theme. However, financial inclusion and financial literacy remain underdeveloped, suggesting a need for more empirical and regionally grounded studies. This review provides a comprehensive understanding of the current research landscape and outlines future directions for incorporating interdisciplinary frameworks to develop measurable FinTech sustainability indicators for inclusive finance systems.