Recently, the paper How FinTech Innovation Empowers Bank Inclusive Finance — Evidence from Small and Micro Enterprise Entrepreneurship, co-authored by Professor Zhang Bo from the School of Economics, PhD candidate Cui Shihao, and Zhang Jingjing from the School of Finance, Shandong University of Finance and Economics (PhD Candidate, Class of 2021, School of Economics), has been officially published in Issue 8, 2026 of the authoritative journal China Industrial Economics. This paper is one of the phased outcomes of the team’s serial research on the “five major articles” of finance.

Banks are the primary suppliers of inclusive loans for small and micro enterprises (SMEs). Nevertheless, how FinTech innovation empowers banks’ inclusive finance and supports SME entrepreneurship remains understudied. From the perspective of SME entrepreneurship, this study provides empirical evidence for how FinTech innovation enables bank-based inclusive finance. The results show that the establishment of SME branches by banks holding FinTech patents helps boost local SME entrepreneurship. The core mechanism is that FinTech innovation strengthens banks’ capability to collect and process information, and improves SMEs’ credit environment by intensifying competition in the credit market. In addition, SME branches set up by banks with FinTech patents can promote both necessity-driven and opportunity-driven entrepreneurship, extend the survival period of SMEs and improve their operating performance. This indicates that FinTech innovation can balance “survival” and “development” when supporting SME entrepreneurship and effectively enhance the quality and efficiency of inclusive finance.

Zhang Bo is Professor at the School of Economics, Shandong University. His research fields cover inclusive finance, culture and finance, and Chinese financial history. He has presided over 2 projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Youth Project of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education, the Key Project of Shandong Provincial Key R&D Program (Soft Science Project), and 6 provincial and ministerial-level projects including projects of the Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation. He has published more than 20 papers in renowned academic journals such as China Economic Quarterly, Journal of Financial Research, China Industrial Economics, The Journal of World Economy, Economica, Financial Management, and Journal of Banking & Finance. He has won awards including the Shandong Provincial Award for Emerging Talents in Social Sciences and the Shandong Provincial Excellent Achievement Award in Social Sciences. The research reports he submitted have been adopted by relevant central ministries and received positive instructions from leading officials of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee.