ESG, governance variables and Fintech: An empirical analysis

Abstract

The paper consists of an empirical analysis on a sample of 180 listed banks by verifying four different hypotheses: (H1) The development of fintech contributes positively to the ESG performance of banks; (H2) Board size is negatively related to ESG performance of banks; (H3) The percentage of independent board members is positively related to ESG performance of banks; (H4) Gender diversity is positively related to ESG performance of banks. The fintech index has been developed by using the annual reports of companies included in the sample by adopting 10 keywords. Our approach is original because none of the extant contributions on the topic proposed any methodology to measure the level of fintech and define whether a bank is more fintech than another. Results indicates that a great level of fintech in banking sector improves significantly ESG performance. The relationship with board size is negative but not statistically significant, while are positive and relevant the relationships with the level of independence of the board and gender diversity.