Toward a Theoretical Framework for Green Digital Finance: Bridging FinTech and Sustainability Goals

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-772-9_28How to use a DOI?

Keywords

FinTech; Sustainable Development Goals; Green Digital Finance

Abstract

The advancement of FinTech witnessed by the pressing need for sustainability, has led to the emergence of a new field called Green Digital Finance (GDF). FinTech has the potential to advance the reach of green finance but no theoretical evidence exists to define the techno-sustainable convergence. The study proposes a theoretical and conceptual framework, setting the ground for further research and analysis, on understanding the relationship. literature was retrieved from the Scopus database and google scholar using inclusion criteria as per PRISMA guidelines. The extracted articles were classified into three themes: (i) Rising trends (ii) sustainability compliant innovations (iii) Institutional environment. The literature review revealed integration of relevant theories and identification of four key constructs. A theoretical framework was developed and a conceptual flowchart was designed aligning the constructs.

Findings: (i) FinTech allows marginalized groups to engage in green investment opportunities, (ii) Blockchain provides decentralized records, thereby reducing greenwashing, (iii) AI enable real time tracking of financial transactions and evaluating ESG reporting; however, (iv) there are many challenges associated, such as lack of technological awareness, absence of ethical governance and carbon footprint of some technologies like blockchain mining.

Practical implications: the policymakers should recognise the significance of GDF and work toward enabling policies, also evaluate the existing policies for developing a standardized institutional framework for GDF.

Originality/ value: this paper’s novelty lies in developing a theoretical and conceptual framework for GDF forming the grounds for further empirical studies.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Asha Sarkar
AU  - Sarita Kumari Singh
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/07
TI  - Toward a Theoretical Framework for Green Digital Finance: Bridging FinTech and Sustainability Goals
BT  - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Innovations and Challenges in Financial Technology (ICICFT 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 367
EP  - 389
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-772-9_28
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-772-9_28
ID  - Sarkar2026
ER  -