Traditional measures of per capita income, including GNI per capita, GDP per capita, and PPP-adjusted variants, fail to account for a critical dimension of economic capacity: access to financing and financial infrastructure. This paper proposes a novel frameworkâCredit-Augmented Per Capita Income (CAPCI)âwhich adjusts nominal income by a Finance Access Multiplier (FAM) derived from household debt-to-income ratios and financial inclusion metrics. Using data from the World Bank, IMF, and academic sources, we demonstrate that finance access effectively allows individuals in developed economies to "pull future earnings into the present," creating a temporal arbitrage effect that dramatically amplifies economic capacity relative to counterparts in developing regions. Our illustrative calculations suggest that the true economic disparity between developed economies (e.g., USA) and developing regions (e.g., Sub-Saharan Africa) is approximately approximately 32% greater than nominal per capita income figures suggestârising from a 45Ă nominal gap to approximately 60Ă when finance access is properly accounted for using a credit discount coefficient. This finding has significant implications for understanding the relevance and imperative for financial inclusion and its relation to global inequality and designing development policy initiatives to incentivize growth. A Critical Distinction: Household Finance vs. Sovereign Debt. It is essential to distinguish the framework proposed here from advocacy for increased sovereign borrowing. Centralized debtâloans to the stateâhas a troubled track record in African nations, often resulting in large national debt burdens with limited developmental impact. Our framework is fundamentally different: we advocate for empowerment of individuals, households, and communities through access to personal and business financing infrastructure. A key indicator of healthy financial development is the ratio of collective household debt to national debtâa ratio that is substantially higher in developed economies. When households can access mortgages, business loans, entrepreneurship capital, and consumer finance, economic capacity is distributed and multiplied at the grassroots level, rather than concentrated in state apparatus. This distributed (decentralized) approach to financial empowerment represents a fundamentally different path to development than sovereign borrowing.
Pakistan's economic trajectory is defined by a structural trap: stabilization followed by consumption-led expansion that inevitably triggers a balance of payments crisis, renewed borrowing, and deepened fiscal vulnerability. This paper proposes a comprehensive 20-year transition strategy to break this cycle by replacing debt-financed consumption with an investment-led, export-oriented model grounded in the principles of riba-free finance. The framework synthesizes the disciplined interventionist state model of 1960s South Korea with the decentralized, borderless opportunities of the 21st-century digital economy through a Dual-Track Growth Engine covering both physical industrialization and virtual services expansion. The strategy further proposes a Digital Public Infrastructure architecture centered on the Raast payment system and blockchain-enabled supply chain transparency to formalize Pakistan's shadow economy, estimated at over $450 billion. On the financing side, the paper develops an equity-based paradigm for mobilizing diaspora capital through Mudarabah-based instruments, replacing domestic sovereign debt with Sukuk and Ijarah certificates, and executing structured debt-for-equity swaps with bilateral creditors including China. A phased 20-year roadmap is provided, with mathematical risk assessment through the Contingent Claims Approach, and a candid treatment of academic critiques including IMF framework conflicts and principal-agent problems in equity-based financing. The objective is economic self-sufficiency by Pakistan's centenary in 2047.
The informal economy of Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for roughly 85% of total employment in Kenya, Uganda, and Ghana, and most of the people working in it cannot get formal credit. This review is bounded to those three markets; Nigeria, the region's largest credit market, is excluded and identified below as the most consequential gap in market coverage. The decade of mobile-based digital lending that followed the launch of M-Shwari in 2012 was a partial correction. It widened access, but it also produced mass blacklisting, over-indebtedness, and outcomes that landed hardest on women and other underserved borrowers. It ran, moreover, on data-extraction practices (contact-list harvesting, device fingerprinting, behavioural telemetry) that are now prohibited across all three target markets. This review sets out the technical and theoretical groundwork for a successor architecture: a privacy-preserving, edge-native credit system built on consented data. The organising claim is that credit exclusion in low-information markets is, at bottom, an information asymmetry problem, and that the structure of peer transaction networks is a form of quantifiable social collateral that can partially close the gap without the extractive practices regulators have moved to stop. Against that frame, we work through four literatures: the empirical record of alternative credit scoring and its failure modes; the regulatory shift that has made extractive architectures legally untenable; the privacy-preserving machine learning stack (federated learning with differential privacy, fully homomorphic encryption, and zero-knowledge proofs) and the real cost each guarantee carries; and graph neural network architectures for financial risk, including their vulnerability to adversarial manipulation. We also ask whether sub-2B-parameter models, quantized to INT4, can run on the low-end Android hardware that target borrowers actually own. Two further problems sit underneath these four and are treated as first-order rather than incidental. The first is that consent in a relational setting is not the same object as consent in an individual one: scoring a borrower from the structure of their transaction graph implicates the counterparties in that graph, and the literature on consent has barely begun to model this. The second is that an architecture built to expand across domains, from finance into agriculture and eventually health, expands its governance surface at the same rate, and the contextual-integrity principle that justifies the credit model also constrains where that data may travel. The most consequential research frontier is not inside any one of these areas. It is at their meeting point: private training of graph-structured models is unsolved, benchmark results have never been tested against African mobile money networks, and the compounding accuracy costs of privacy, quantization, and fairness have not been characterised jointly. We identify the gaps S Labs Finance AI will address, while refusing throughout the comfortable assumption that a privacy-preserving credit model is automatically a welfare-improving one. This revision adds a consolidated execution-risk register and a prioritised contribution roadmap (Sections 5 and 6) synthesised from an internal review of the Phase 1 draft. Coverage is primarily peer-reviewed work from 2019 to 2025, with grey literature (regulatory instruments, industry benchmarks, arXiv pre-prints) included where peer-reviewed equivalents do not yet exist. Jurisdictional coverage is similarly bounded: this review treats Kenya, Uganda, and Ghana as the target markets and does not examine Nigeria's regulatory regime (CBN consumer-protection guidelines, the NDPA) or its competitive landscape (FairMoney, Carbon, Renmoney, Branch Nigeria, Kuda). Given Nigeria's scale, this is flagged as a priority extension rather than a settled exclusion
In this article, we compare financial knowledge levels and identify the determinants of financial attitudes among 16-20-year-old students in Italy and the Autonomous Community of Galicia (Spain). We combine cross-country comparative evidence with data-driven variable selection based on machine learning techniques and theory-driven modelling of financial attitudes. Our study offers an original contribution to the literature on youth financial literacy and behaviour in emerging digital financial domains, namely instalment-based credit solutions and cryptocurrency investments. Our findings reveal that Galician students display higher average financial knowledge than Italian ones and have a higher propensity to use instalment payments and to invest in cryptocurrencies. Financial knowledge plays a central role in shaping both credit and investment attitudes, alongside experience, income, and behavioural traits, with significant cross-country differences. More specific knowledge in each domain is associated with more cautious attitudes, suggesting that deeper understanding relates with more prudent behaviour. Among Italian educational pathways, technical institutes appear to be the only track able to substantially reduce the literacy gap. These insights highlight the need for a reform of financial education pathways, with greater emphasis on experiential learning and student-involving teaching strategies.
Traditional measures of per capita income, including GDP per capita and PPP-adjusted variants, fail to account for a critical dimension of economic capacity: access to financing and financial infrastructure. This paper proposes a novel framework-Credit-Augmented Per Capita Income (CAPCI)-which adjusts nominal income by a Finance Access Multiplier (FAM) derived from household debt-to-income ratios and financial inclusion metrics. Using data from the World Bank, IMF, and academic sources, we demonstrate that finance access effectively allows individuals in developed economies to "pull future earnings into the present," creating a temporal arbitrage effect that dramatically amplifies economic capacity relative to counterparts in developing regions. Our illustrative calculations suggest that the true economic disparity between developed economies (e.g., USA) and developing regions (e.g., Sub-Saharan Africa) is approximately 74% greater than nominal per capita income figures suggestârising from a 53Ă nominal gap to approximately 92Ă when finance access is properly factored in with a credit discount coefficient. This finding has significant implications for understanding the relevance and imperative for financial inclusion and its relation to global inequality and designing development policy initiatives to incentivize growth. A Critical Distinction: Household Finance vs. Sovereign Debt. It is essential to distinguish the framework proposed here from advocacy for increased sovereign borrowing. Centralized debtâloans to the stateâhas a troubled track record in African nations, often resulting in large national debt burdens with limited developmental impact. Our framework is fundamentally different: we advocate for empowerment of individuals, households, and communities through access to personal and business financing infrastructure. A key indicator of healthy financial development is the ratio of collective household debt to national debtâa ratio that is substantially higher in developed economies. When households can access mortgages, business loans, entrepreneurship capital, and consumer finance, economic capacity is distributed and multiplied at the grassroots level, rather than concentrated in state apparatus. This distributed (decentralized) approach to financial empowerment represents a fundamentally different path to development than sovereign borrowing.
Anthony Chidi Nzomiwu, Francisca Uzooyibo Okoye, Benedict Iyke Okoronkwo
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) face a persistent financing gap globally, estimated at significant portions of GDP in emerging markets like Nigeria, while facing different structural barriers in developed economies like Poland. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) offers theoretical solutions through peer-to-peer lending and tokenized assets, yet pure DeFi adoption remains low among SMEs due to regulatory uncertainty, technical complexity, and volatility. This paper employs Institutional Theory (North, 1990) and Ozili's (2023) tripartite framework of regulation, infrastructure, and capacity to compare the Nigerian and Polish contexts. Drawing on a synthesis of recent literature (2018-2026), the study argues that "pure" DeFi is ill-suited for immediate SME adoption in either context. Instead, a "Hybrid Finance" model where regulated fintech intermediaries bridge traditional banking and blockchain protocols offers the most viable pathway. The analysis highlights Nigeria's reactive regulatory stance (e.g., the 2021 ban and subsequent lifting) versus Poland's adaptive integration within the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework. The paper concludes that institutional embedding, rather than technological disruption alone, is critical for closing the SME financing gap.
Lending in decentralized finance (DeFi) relies on collateral and efficient liquidations to manage credit risk. The permissionless and pseudonymous nature of public blockchains precludes reputation-based lending in DeFi and renders liabilities effectively non-recourse. Frictions in collateral liquidations increase the risk of bad debt and may ultimately lead to protocol defaults and losses for liquidity providers. This paper studies liquidation dynamics in the Aave V2 Main Market on Ethereum using block-level data covering 46 months and more than 54 000 borrower positions. While most undercollateralized debt is liquidated almost instantaneously, a non-trivial share of positions remains open for extended periods. Using a state model to distinguish healthy, viable for liquidation, and stale borrower positions, this paper quantifies transition probabilities and identifies factors associated with liquidation success. Logistic regression results show that liquidation size, lower network transaction fees, and relative profitability are associated with the probability of liquidation success in the subsequent block. At the same time, oracle price distortions and asset price volatility are associated with lower liquidation likelihood, consistent with heightened execution risk. The findings provide new high-frequency evidence on liquidation frictions in a large and mature DeFi lending market. The results contribute to the understanding of the microstructure of DeFi liquidations and credit risk in decentralized lending protocols.
Disasters and pandemics have adverse effects on both lives and economies, requiring timely and adequate funding for relief efforts. However, traditional donation systems often face challenges such as funding delays and public distrust. This paper proposed Funding Blocks (FunB)s, a decentralized donation software built on the Tezos blockchain (TzBlockchain). It ensures transparency, accountability, and security in a trustless environment. Smart contracts powered by the Tezos networkâs proof-of-stake consensus algorithm facilitate automatic tamper-proof execution of donation transactions. This helps in eliminating intermediaries and reducing administrative costs. The platformâs decentralized nature enhances scalability and resilience, enabling swift response to global calamities. It offers a user-friendly interface for direct contributions, incorporating mechanisms to verify and validate charitable organizations. It also provides real-time tracking of funds, ensuring transparent visibility to donors. By leveraging blockchain technology, FunBs addresses funding challenges, accelerates response times, and enhances the efficiency of disaster relief efforts. This model contributes to creating a sustainable and resilient funding ecosystem that empowers individuals and organizations to make secure and transparent contributions during crises
Hong Kong Institute for Monetary and Financial Research
This paper is written by Evgeny Lyandres (Tel Aviv University) and Alexander Zaidelson (SCRT Labs). This paper performs a comprehensive empirical investigation of liquidity provision into concentrated liquidity (Uniswap V3) pools on the Ethereum blockchain. To examine the performance of liquidity provision strategies and their determinants, we reverse-engineer each liquidity poolâs history and measure every liquidity positionâs return. We also decompose each positionâs return into components, including core elementsânon-concentrated liquidity provision and liquidity concentration. Returns to the core components of liquidity provision are negative on average but are mildly positive within the sample of frequent liquidity providers. Some liquidity providers seem to possess skill, as evidenced by persistence in performance, by learning from past experience, and by associations between several position and liquidity provider characteristics on one hand and performance on the other hand. We compare quantitative and discretionary liquidity provision strategies and their performance and find that quant liquidity providers significantly underperform discretionary ones. This underperformance cannot be fully traded to measurable differences in strategies of the two types of liquidity providers. Successful quant liquidity providers employ strategies that are largely similar to those of successful discretionary liquidity providers.
A Sowmiya, Kavitha Muthukumaran, V Jhansi, Jesus Milton Rousseau S. · 6 authors
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) represents a transformative shift in the financial landscape by using blockchain technology to enable peer-to-peer services without traditional intermediaries. This study adopts a socio-cultural lens to examine the key factors that influence individualsâ intentions to adopt DeFi technologies. In particular, we explore how performance expectancy (perceived usefulness), effort expectancy (perceived ease of use), social influence, and innovativeness drive user adoption, and how these relationships are moderated by demographic factors such as age, gender, education, and income. Drawing on survey data (N = 425) collected in India (an emerging market context), the research employs Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to test the proposed framework. Results indicate that perceived usefulness and ease of use are significant positive predictors of DeFi adoption. Social influence and individual innovativeness also encourage adoption, especially among younger and more educated users. Moreover, demographic characteristics shape the strength of these effects: for instance, younger users find DeFi more useful and easier to use, women are more impacted by social recommendations, and higher-income individuals are more inclined to adopt innovative financial solutions. These findings underscore that DeFi adoption is not just a technical or economic process, but a culturally situated phenomenon influenced by social dynamics and user diversity. The paper discusses implications for improving digital financial inclusion and strategies for stakeholders to foster broader DeFi acceptance across different social groups
Crowdfunding for social goods has become a transformative force in India's development ecosystem, emerging as a crucial citizen-driven financing model for healthcare assistance, educational support, social welfare, environmental conservation, and community development projects.As India progresses toward achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the importance of innovative, decentralized, and participatory funding mechanisms has grown significantly.Traditional sources of funding-government schemes, philanthropic donations, CSR initiatives, and institutional grants-are often insufficient to meet the enormous financial needs of low-income and marginalized communities.In this context, digital crowdfunding platforms such as Ketto, Milaap, ImpactGuru, Donatekart, and GiveIndia offer flexible, inclusive, and accessible channels for mobilizing public contributions.Unlike commercial crowdfunding, donation-based crowdfunding provides no financial returns to donors.Therefore, donors' decisions are fundamentally shaped by behavioural finance factors rather than economic incentives.This research adopts a behavioural finance perspective to examine the psychological, emotional, cognitive, and social determinants that influence campaign success for SDG-aligned social crowdfunding projects in India.The study investigates how donor motivations-including altruism, empathy, moral obligation, warm-glow effect, identity-driven giving, and social influence-interact with campaign design elements, platform architecture, and trust signals to determine fundraising outcomes.Findings from prior research and platform-level data indicate that trust remains the strongest driver of donation intention.Indian donors tend to be risk-averse due to concerns about fraud, misrepresentation, and misuse of funds.As a result, trust-building mechanisms-such as verified fundraisers, authentic documentation, medical proof, transparent financial breakdowns, institutional endorsements, and frequent campaign updates-significantly increase credibility and donor confidence.Emotional storytelling is another powerful determinant; campaigns featuring identifiable beneficiaries, vivid visuals, personal narratives, and urgent medical needs evoke stronger empathy and are more likely to attract support.Social proof and herding behaviour also play a critical role.Donors frequently look to the actions of others to validate campaign legitimacy, especially when information is limited.High engagement metrics-number of donors, comments, shares, early contributions-signal popularity and urgency, triggering positive herding effects that accelerate the fundraising process.Campaigns that achieve early momentum typically experience higher visibility, stronger network effects, and higher conversion rates.In India, where community networks, family ties, religious identity, and regional affiliations are strong, such social cues significantly enhance campaign reach:
This study does a bibliometric analysis of financial inclusion research within the framework of a sustainable economy, utilizing papers indexed in a prominent scientific database from 2000 to 2025. The study utilizes performance analysis and scientific mapping methodologies through VOSviewer and Bibliometrix to investigate publication patterns, prominent authors, institutions, countries, and networks of keyword co-occurrence. The findings indicate that financial inclusion and sustainable development form the primary conceptual core, intricately linked to economic growth, financial development, and sustainability. Contemporary research is mostly focused on digital issues, including fintech, digital financial inclusion, and decentralized finance, which progressively associate inclusive finance with environmental performance, green innovation, and the reduction of carbon emissions. Networks of international collaboration indicate that emerging economies, notably China, India, Pakistan, and South Africa, assume a prominent role, but such collaboration is predominantly localized rather than entirely global. The study elucidates the structure and history of this interdisciplinary domain, identifies significant research clusters and deficiencies, and delineates avenues for further exploration of inclusive and sustainable financial systems.
Grounded into Innovation Diffusion Theory and Technology Acceptance Model, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of AI-powered financial services on financial access in the Saudi Arabian fintech sector. To achieve this aim, the research employed SEM analysis on the collected data from 194employees working in the departments related to AI-based services, staff members of fintech firms, and owners of small enterprises who use digital financial solutions in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam. The results reveal that AI-based robo-advisory platforms, fraud detection, and credit scoring servicessignificantly improved financial access demonstrating that AI adoption in financial services can play a transformative role in promoting inclusion and reducing barriers for underserved populations whereas AI-based personalized banking solutions showed insignificant impact suggesting that while personalization may enhance user satisfaction or loyalty, it does not directly translate into increased access to financial services. In practical terms, the findings imply that fintech companies and financial institutions should prioritize AI-enabled services as a means of expanding access to professional financial advice which requiresa multi-stakeholder approach, where fintech firms, regulators, and policymakers collaborate to maximize the benefits of AI-powered financial services while minimizing associated risks. Furtherresearch should be carried out adopting longitudinal design and mixed methodology to study the role of emerging technologies such as blockchain-based identity verification, AI-driven insurance, or decentralized finance platforms on financial access.
The constant evolution of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) calls for the continuous monitoring of its developments and implications through a critical review of the academic literature. While DeFi holds promise for enhancing economic activity by expanding market access for enterprises and promoting financial inclusion, concerns remain that digital assets are primarily used for speculative purposes rather than for financing the real economy. This study employs bibliometric methods to investigate whether and how the current academic literature addresses the potential influence of DeFi on real economic dynamics. Employing bibliometric methodsâincluding co-citation, bibliographic coupling, and keyword co-occurrence analysesâfocused on DeFi-related publications in the Economics and Business subject areas within the Scopus database, the study maps the knowledge base, author networks, and thematic trends and their temporal evolution, supporting regulators, researchers, and practitioners. The findings reveal that the integration of DeFi with the real economy has received limited attention in scholarly research. This highlights the need for further investigation into DeFiâs implications for financial stability, productive investment, and long-term economic growth.
This study aims to examine the development of research on the topic of âIslamic Smart Contractsâ and potential research plans based on journals published on this theme. This research uses a qualitative method with a bibliometric analysis approach. The data used is secondary data on the theme âIslamic Smart Contractâ from the Scopus database, with a total of 74 journal articles. The data was then processed and analyzed using the VosViewer application to map the bibliometric development of âIslamic Smart Contractâ research worldwide. The results of the study found 5 clusters with the most frequently used words being smart contract, technology, blockchain, contract, transaction, fintech, blockchain technology, and islamic finance. Then, the research path topics related to Islamic Smart Contracts are Blockchain for Islamic Finance, Fintech in the Islamic Finance Industry, Smart Contracts and Cryptocurrency in Islamic Finance, Smart Contract in Sukuk and Waqf, and Islamic Smart Contracts in Banking.
Background and Research Aims Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) are Ghanaâs decentralized approach to biodiversity conservation and sustainable natural resource governance. Despite their institutional legality and community support, CREMAs face persistent financial instability, largely due to donor dependency and the absence of sustainable internal funding mechanisms. In contrast, Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) have emerged as resilient, community-driven financial systems that promote local livelihoods. This study asks: Can communities sustainably finance their own conservation through grassroots mechanisms like VSLAs? Grounded in Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM), collective action theory, and informal rural finance systems, the aim is to explore the feasibility of integrating VSLAs into CREMA governance as a model for localized conservation finance. Methods A qualitative case study was employed across four CREMAs in Ghanaâs Black Volta River and Western Wildlife corridors. Sixteen focus group discussions were conducted with CREMA executive members, community leaders, VSLA participants, and women and youth groups. Thematic analysis identified perceptions, challenges, and opportunities for financing CREMA activities through VSLAs. Results Findings indicate strong community acceptance of CREMAs, but significant underfunding limits their conservation impact. Conversely, VSLAs were described as trusted, inclusive, and capable of supporting household and community needs. Participants advocated integrating VSLAs into CREMA governance with transparency safeguards and shared control mechanisms. Women and youth, central to VSLA operations, were identified as key stakeholders for advancing inclusive conservation finance. Conclusion Integrating VSLAs into CREMA structures presents a promising model for bottom-up, sustainable financing of conservation activities in Ghana. It builds on existing community trust systems, enhances participation, and reduces reliance on external donors. Implications for Conservation This study contributes a novel community-based green financing framework that links informal rural finance with decentralized conservation governance. It offers replicable insights for scaling localized conservation finance in other resource-dependent, tropical contexts across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Open access
Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
Abstract Increased and sustained access to the formal financial system enables communities to better meet their basic needs, prepare for and respond to unexpected shocks, and achieve broader economic growth. Yet many emerging economies like those across Latin America continue to face barriers that prevent individuals, households, and businesses from accessing the formal financial system. Financial inclusion efforts that leverage technological innovation are well suited to address some of them. Specifically, fintech products built on blockchains offer new ways to access financial services by creating pathways that do not rely on traditional infrastructure. Blockchain-based services offer easier financial access, innovative credit opportunities, and capital formation in a decentralized financial environment. While blockchain and DeFi are still in their early stages, these services have the potential to close some persistent gaps that stand in the way of more inclusive Latin American economies.
Introduction: The rapid development of financial technology (fintech) and blockchain has brought a major transformation in the global industry, including in the Islamic finance sector. However, integrating fintech and blockchain with Sharia principles remains a challenge and has not been studied systematically. This research aims to map and analyze the development of research related to Fintech, Blockchain, and Islamic finance, identifying trends, research gaps, and future development directions. Methods: This study employed a qualitative research method with a Systematic Literature Review approach, utilizing a model prism. The data source for this study consisted of published articles obtained from Scopus and Emerald. The study's results showed that 30 articles, published in Scopus and Emerald, were published between 2015 and 2024. Results: Based on the findings obtained, it is evident that blockchain technology, fintech, and digital innovation have significant potential in enhancing the efficiency, transparency, and inclusivity of Islamic finance, particularly through applications in zakat, waqf, sukuk, and crowdfunding. Despite regulatory and collaboration challenges, these technologies have been able to eradicate poverty, support economic development, and expand access to finance, including in non-Muslim countries. Technology adoption is also influenced by religiosity factors and perception of benefits, confirming the need for global regulatory and standard support to maximize its benefits. Conclusion and Suggestion: The reviewed studies suggest that blockchain technology has significant potential to strengthen trust and compliance with Shariah by enabling smart contracts, decentralized financial products, and transparent auditing mechanisms. Moreover, fintech solutions can expand financial inclusion in Muslim-majority countries and beyond, especially for the unbanked population. However, challenges remain in terms of regulatory frameworks, Shariah standardization, scalability of blockchain applications, and the readiness of financial institutions and customers to adopt these innovations. In conclusion, while fintech and blockchain present strong prospects for advancing Islamic finance, further research and practical implementation are required to fully realize their potential in providing Shariah-compliant, inclusive, and sustainable financial services.
Wan Amir Azlan Wan Haniff, Redwan Yasin, Rahmawati Mohd Yusoff, Asma Hakimah Ab Halim · 6 authors
The article investigates the challenges and prospects of the ruling of Waqf Crowdfunding (Waqf-CF) scheme adoption in Malaysia as Shariah-compliant fintech successors deployed to mobilize Islamic endowment. However, the implementation of Waqf-CF is hindered by a number of challenges, such as the uncertainty of the legal aspects and fragmented governance, along with technology limitations and Shariah compliance issues. Using a qualitative approach, insights were gathered from seven experts 7 experts in finance, academia, and business to inform and guide our work. The results suggest that poor coordination of regulation between federal and state governments, varied modes of governance, and a lack of fintech literacy in waqf bodies are the barriers to successful implementation. In this regard, the paper examines the Waqf-CF models currently being used, including the Crowdfunding-Waqf Model and the Hasanah Platform, by highlighting the pros and cons of each. Based on these, the authors present a sophisticated hybrid model combining blockchain-based smart contracts, AI-led risk profiling, and real-time Shariah auditing for increased trust, transparency, and scalability. Finally, the paper calls for the need of a national regulatory framework and better institutional support to drive Waqf Crowdfunding as an ethical and sustainable funding option that is in line with Maqasid al-Shariah and the nationâs vision to be a global Islamic financial hub.
The FinTech revolution is changing the way banks work around the world by combining blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) to make safe, efficient, and customer-focused financial environments. A systematic review of AI blockchain convergence in modern banking, emphasizing its transformative impact on security, operational efficiency, and financial innovation. AI enables intelligent decision-making through applications such as fraud detection, credit risk assessment, algorithmic trading, and predictive analytics, while blockchain provides decentralized, tamper-resistant, and auditable transaction infrastructure. Digital currencies, asset tokenization, decentralized finance (DeFi), smart contracts, and automated regulatory compliance are some of the new FinTech applications driven by their synergy. This integration also supports Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) by facilitating real-time fund allocation, sustainable investment tracking, and transparent auditing. Despite its significant potential persisting, including regulatory ambiguity, scalability limitations, cybersecurity risks, and data privacy concerns, which limit large-scale adoption in banking systems. By synthesizing and analyzing key technological trends, the current capabilities of AIâblockchain integration in FinTech that the synergistic convergence of AI, blockchain, and financial technologies is a critical enabler for next-generation digital banking, promoting financial inclusion, resilience, and sustainable economic growth
This study investigates on the relationship between cryptocurrencies and financial inclusion in Mexico. Using a basic, descriptive and qualitative research design, first a brief literature review is conducted in order to analyze the impact of cryptocurrencies on financial inclusion according to the state-of-the-art opinion of other researchers on the topic. Secondly, aiming to improve the understanding of the potential that cryptocurrencies may have for financial inclusion in Mexico, a digital questionnaire is applied to a sample of 415 individuals. Main results of the literature review show that fintech and blockchain technology including cryptocurrencies have the potential to improve the situation of financial inclusion, especially in developing countries. The conducted survey on consumer perceptions of cryptocurrencies reveals that there exists an important growth potential for the use of cryptocurrencies in Mexico. However, security issues, distrust, a lack of technological and financial education and deficient regulation are major obstacles on the way.
Purpose â Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT), one of the latest innovations in the financial world, have succeeded in triggering debate among the public, especially in terms of Islamic financial principles. Therefore, this study seeks to explore the gap between public societiesâ perspectives on NFT on Twitter and the discourse conveyed by experts in research articles or journalists in popular articles. Methodology: This study combines two analyses, namely sentiment analysis, using the R Studio application to categorize public opinion into positive, neutral, and negative sentiments. Discourse analysis uses the NVivo 12 application to identify critical themes in scientific writing.Findings â The results show various perceptions of positive sentiments often associated with NFT and innovation. By contrast, negative sentiments focus on speculation, lack of clarity, and the potential to conflict with the principles of Islamic finance. These findings convey concerns about the speculative nature of the NFT and its compliance with Sharia law. However, some scholars argue that NFT can be structured according to Islamic ethics if proper guidelines are followed. Implications â This study contributes to bridging the gap between public perception and scholars, so that insights arise regarding NFT as perceived within the framework of Islamic finance. Originality â We believe this study is the first qualitative study to investigate public sentiment about NFT from Twitter/X and discuss it with the principles of Islamic finance.