Time: 13:00-15:00 (UK Time), Wednesday, 3 November 2021
Presenter: Professor Mohammad Kabir Hassan, University of New Orleans, US
Chair: Professor Victor Murinde, SOAS University of London
Online venue: Click here to join the seminar on Microsoft Teams (For any inquiry about how to join the online seminar, please contact Dr Meng Xie: xm1@soas.ac.uk
Abstract
The global financial crisis, technological innovation, and the current COVID-19 pandemic results in interest for various initiatives to stabilize the banking sector and advance digital financial inclusion (DFI) for global policymakers and standard setters. Yet, we know the long-term impact of DFI on bank stability. Using a sample of 1371 banks from 53 countries from 2011 to 2019, this study aims to investigate whether any synergies or trade-offs exist between DFI and bank stability in a global perspective. Notwithstanding the early stage of digital finance, our empirical evidence finds that a wider level of DFI, with proper supervision and regulation, stabilizes the banking sector, subsequently bringing the overall financial sustainability in the global context. Our robust results also suggest banks’ responses regarding the DFI-bank stability nexus are heterogeneous among different regions, different income levels, different bank sizes, and different bank types. Further evidence suggests by focusing on disadvantaged people and including them under formal financial services in the form of account opening and digital financial services, gaps in DFI are reduced which ultimately brings a higher level of bank stability in the form of diversification benefits. Our study recommends specific policies for the policymakers.
JEL Classification: E44, F65, G21, G28
Keywords: Digital financial inclusion; financial inclusion; bank stability; disadvantaged adults; digital payments.
Presenter
Professor Mohammad Kabir Hassan is Professor of Finance in the Department of Economics and Finance at the University of New Orleans. He holds three endowed Chairs: Hibernia Professor of Economics and Finance; Hancock Whitney Chair Professor in Business; and Bank One Professor in Business. Professor Hassan is ranked among the top 2% of researchers globally in the World Scientist and University Rankings 2021 published by AD Scientific Index.
Professor Hassan is a financial economist with consulting, research and teaching experience in development finance, money and capital markets, Islamic finance, corporate finance, investments, monetary economics, macroeconomics, Islamic banking and finance, and international trade and finance. He has carried out consulting work for the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, African Development Bank, Transparency International-Bangladesh (TIB), Islamic Development Bank, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Government of Turkey and many private organizations. He served as a Board Member of Ethics and Governance Committee and Education Board of the Accounting and Auditing Organization for the Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI). He is the winner of the 2016 Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Prize in Islamic Banking and Finance.
Professor Hassan has over 350 papers published as book chapters and in top refereed academic journals. He is the Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management, Senior Editor of International Journal of Emerging Markets and Associate Editor of Review of International Business and Finance, International Review of Economics and Finance, and Pacific-Basin Finance Journal.