Fintech meets Industry 4.0: a systematic literature review of recent developments and future trends

The Fintech and Industry 4.0 paradigms, and the combination of the two, have gained increasing attention from the scientific community in recent years. This paper aims to explore the convergence of these two research themes by framing their interplay through a systematic literature review covering the period of 2017 to August 2021 and involving 78 papers. The bibliometric approach made it possible to extract a large amount of useful information which was previously scattered and to present it in a systematic way. The analysis of the co-occurrence network of keywords identified four distinct clusters, corresponding to the dominant research themes in the area, which suggested the design of a research agenda. The agenda-driven questions indicated which current aspects of Fintech and Industry 4.0 need additional insight. In that regard, the environmental and social responsibility aspects of the firms in the sectors were found of particular importance. Theoretical and practical implications of this study as well as answers provided to a set of initially posed research questions were also discussed.