March-April 2024 Global Fellow: Professor Elif Sisli Ciamarra, Stonehill College, Massachusetts, USA

University of Brighton academic: Dr Ceylan Onay Sahin  

Professor Elif Sisli Ciamarra is collaborating with Dr Ceylan Onay Sahin on research into the relationship between fintech lending and financial inclusion. Fintech lending refers to the use of digital technologies by lenders to issue loans through websites or mobile applications. They hypothesize that the strength of the traditional banking sector and regulation act as moderators for the relationship between financial technology and financial inclusion. They will investigate whether fintechs contribute to financial inclusion in economies, where the existing banking system is less-developed, but sufficiently strong fintech regulation is in place. In economies with well-developed banking sectors, they expect that the fintech providers are more likely to be acquired by large banking institutions, decrease their overhead costs, and increase their profitability, but not necessarily improve access to financial services for unbanked or underbanked population. Findings may help governments to adopt policies to strengthen the link between fintech services and financial inclusion and research should contribute to creating sustainable economies by enhancing financial intermediation.

Their work is interdisciplinary in nature, and will contribute to the literatures on development economics, financial intermediation and regulation. As such, this fellowship will address two of the four Global Challenges set forward by the University of Brighton; “Equality and Inclusivity”, and “Creative and Sustainable Economies” and also aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goals including 8 (decent work and economic growth) / 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure) and 10 (reduced inequalities).

The intention is to apply for grants before December this year, present a manuscript at the Financial Management Association (FMA) Conference along with other academic conferences in 2025, and submit a joint paper to the Journal of Financial Stability in January 2025.

To encourage postgraduate researcher engagement, in-person and online presentations on topics including financial technology, fintech lending and financial inclusion were conducted and open to all Centres of Research and Knowledge Exchange Excellence.