Fintech Empowerment and Credit Accessibility for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

In recent years, the development of Fintech have brought new ways to solve the financing problems of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). Many SME are not served by traditional credit systems because they do not have proper collateral, credit history or they are considered to be high risk. However, SMEs are important for job creation and innovation, so helping SMEs to have fair access to finance is a new challenge for policymakers in developed and developing countries. Based on the analysis of the findings from different regions and technological fields, the review finds out how FinTech promotes financial inclusion in different aspects. Some challenges are also identified, such as digital literacy and regulation gap and point out the future research directions. Based on the recent academic literature, this paper will sort out the key findings from three perspectives: technological application, regional difference and regulatory challenge. The review compares the findings from different fields to better explain how FinTech would influence the SME access to credit in different situations. Moreover, the review also reflects on the current limitations and gives suggestions to make the FinTech financing more inclusive and effective.