Small businesses and FinTech: a systematic review and future directions

Abstract

Small businesses are significant to any economy from the perspective of employment and contribution to the national gross domestic product. Despite their significance, small businesses continue to face various unresolved challenges. Recent technological innovations in finance, collectively called FinTech, seem to address some challenges. FinTech-led business models like crowdfunding, peer-to-peer lending, invoice trading, mobile wallets and payments, and platform-driven supply chain finance are altering the ecosystem for small businesses. Though there have been efforts, insights on how small businesses have responded to the opportunities of FinTech appear to be limited. To address this, we conducted a systematic and cross-discipline literature review of 103 journal articles published between 2008 to 2023 on small businesses and FinTech. Four conceptual themes emerge from the analysis: usage of FinTech services (payment and financial), and impact of FinTech services (payment and financial) on small businesses. The paper articulates areas for future research.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10660-023-09705-5.

Introduction

Small businesses represent 90% of businesses and more than 50% of employment worldwide [179]. These small businesses contribute nearly 50% of the Gross domestic product (GDP) to the world GDP [171]. Small businesses in developed countries like the USA account for roughly half of all jobs and almost 44% of the gross domestic product [153]. In developing economies like India, these businesses contribute nearly 30% of the overall GDP and almost 42% of employment and strengthen socio-economic growth by providing employment opportunities to a large population [119]. In Africa, these contribute nearly 80% of jobs [4], while in Latin America and the Caribbean, these represent 99.5% of businesses, accounting for 60% of employment and 20% of GDP [99]. In Southeast Asian economies like Malaysia, these are 97.2% of total business establishments, generating 38.2% of GDP [134] and 99.99% of the entire business, besides employing 96.9% of the workforce in Indonesia [133].

These small businesses struggle to survive and thrive despite significant representation and importance in the economy. The literature extensively outlines small businesses' operational, technical, and financial challenges [73]. They lack the economic, social, human, and organizational capital to respond to the challenges [114]. One of the significant challenges is access to financial services owing to information asymmetry problems between the banks and small business owners [172, 188], inadequate institutional infrastructure in assessing the small businesses [17], and high transaction costs [188]. Imperfect screening by lenders makes it difficult for small businesses to access finance [91]. The limited financing opportunities compound all other challenges faced by small businesses. Limited access to finance pushes small businesses into financial difficulties and makes them vulnerable to the crisis [90].

The literature emphasizes the resource constrained environments of SMEs [9, 154, 155]. At the same time, online marketplaces have increased pressure on SMEs to digitally transform [150]. These conditions have pushed small businesses to adopt digital channels and digitalize to remain competitive [8]. SMEs are gradually shifting towards innovative digital channels [146] due to their affordability and accessibility [105], and these transformations are helping SMEs in enhancing their efficiency and growth [8].

The rise of digital technologies such as mobile payment technologies, cloud services, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain is paving the way for new business opportunities for startups to provide services to small busienesses. Integration of these technologies has excellent potential for creating new business models [95]. Artificial intelligence's disruptive nature in finance provides various options for alternative credit assessment, fraud detection, risk evaluation, forecasting, and many more [64]. Technology startups and non-banking financial companies offer innovative products and services in the financial market [157], catering to small businesses [85, 156]. These technology-enabled innovations in financial services are referred to as FinTech. FinTech firms entail new business models, applications, processes, and products, significantly affecting financial markets and financial services [61, 97, 102, 128].

In the academic literature, FinTech does not have a uniform definition. Some scholars define FinTech as an umbrella term where startups design and deliver financial services and products through disruptive technologies [143]. Others call it part of neologism [62], which includes two words: finance and technology connecting modern internet-related technologies (for example, cloud computing, mobile Internet) with the established activities of the financial services industry (for example, money lending, transaction banking). Hence, FinTech is a technology-enabled business activity in the financial service industry that disintermediates and revolutionizes financial services by providing entrepreneurship and growth opportunities [43].

FinTech- business models like crowdfunding and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) target small businesses and the domain of small business finance [127]. Unlike traditional lenders, FinTech firms assess borrowers' creditworthiness through big data analytics and algorithms. These firms offer speed, convenient service, flexibility, and a customized focus on smaller customers' funds [20], reducing the information asymmetry and becoming a game-changer in closing the finance gap by enabling smaller firms to tap alternative funding sources [59].

The rapid development of FinTech and the diversity of research related to it pose a challenge in obtaining a clear understanding of the landscape concerning small businesses. Though there have been review attempts, we do not have any systematic review on FinTech which can provide a comprehensive understanding of FinTech and small businesses. We fill this gap by undertaking an in-depth and broad review of the literature on small businesses and FinTech. We focus on the research studies in the business and management fields conducted between 2008 and 2023. Such a review study will help identify the opportunities and challenges around FinTech in the context of small businesses.

Methodology

Literature reviews play a crucial role in academic research by describing, understanding, and explaining the past literature and developing research agendas [35, 106, 125]. In particular, reviews connect research findings from disparate disciplines in emergent research areas to generate an understanding or new perspective [142]. To perform a systematic literature review of FinTech research in the context of small businesses, we used the guidelines suggested by [93, 138, 167]. The method involves four steps: delineating and defining the research question; establishing the scope and boundaries of review; identification, screening, and selection of literature; and reporting.

As a first step, we delineated and refined the research question for the review. There have been several broad attempts to synthesize the FinTech literature. These reviews consider specific applications such as mobile payments [37, 38] and P2P lending [5, 11], how FinTech allows for access to finance and changes the sector [21, 165], or examine aspects of crowdfunding such as its benefits [41] or specific areas like investor decision making [72] and equity crowdfunding [121]. General reviews of FinTech attempt to categorize the emerging FinTech-related business models [62]. Other studies map out the landscape through bibliometric analysis of FinTech [108, 116]. Several reviews are discipline-specific such as those related to supply chain [55], information systems [97, 128], and finance [51].

These reviews offer useful summaries and insights on the development of the FinTech market, business models, and their role in various topics and disciplines. Small businesses can benefit from financial advancements, but there is no in-depth understanding. The importance of small businesses to the economy necessitates a thorough examination of past literature and warrants a comprehensive literature review.

In light of the above discussion, we finalized the following research questions:

RQ1

What are the major areas or themes of literature focusing on small business and FinTech?

RQ2

What are the future research directions in small businesses and FinTech research?

In the second step, we define the scope of the review and set the boundary conditions by defining inclusion and exclusion criteria. We included only peer-reviewed articles (both empirical and conceptual) published from 2008 to 2023. The reason for taking 2008 as starting point is that from 2008 only FinTech became mainstream with the emergence of new-age startups post-financial crisis [23, 54, 166, 178] and developed as an alternative to traditional banking [65].

We define small businesses as privately owned corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships, and this allows us to capture small businesses across the heterogeneous definitions applied across geographical reasons. For instance, in India, a small enterprise is where the investment in plant and machinery or equipment does not exceed ten crores (1.26 mn USD), and turnover does not exceed fifty crore rupees (6.3 mn USD) [118].

The European Union defines small businesses as enterprises with less than 50 staff and less than or equal to €10 million annual turnover/balance sheet. In the UK, small businesses are enterprises with less than 50 employees and less than £6.5 million in annual turnover. Small enterprises in the USA and China are defined based on industry type, staff size, annual turnover, etc.

To capture articles on small businesses, we drew on keywords similar to those used in earlier reviews on small businesses [19, 130, 162, 163, 190]. These include the keywords “small businesses,” “small enterprises,” “small firms,” “SME,” “microbusinesses,” micro-business, “microenterprises,” “micro-enterprises”, “micro-firms”, “small entrepreneurs”, “microentrepreneurs”, “micro-entrepreneurs”, “retailers, and “merchants”.

To capture FinTech-related research, we used the search terms that appeared in academic journals and grey literature in connection with FinTech. We have used keywords like “FinTech”, “mobile payment”, “digital payment”, “mobile money”, “mobile wallet”, “digital lending”, “digital loan”, “online lending”, “online loan”, “digital finance”, “online finance”, “internet-based finance”, “peer to peer lending”, “P2P lending”, “peer to peer loan”, “P2P loan”, “crowdfunding”, “crowdlending”, “cryptocurrency”, “crypto payment”, “initial coin offering”, “insurtech”, “regtech”.

Our review included only journal articles in 4*, 4, 3, and 2 ranked journals in the Academic Journal Guide (AJG) 2021 list published by the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) UK.1 The AJG2021 list of journals ensures sufficient sample size and quality publication. AJG2021 list as quality criteria is frequently used in previous reviews on small businesses [162, 190].

In the third step, we identified, screened, and selected suitable studies for the review. Combinations of string-based queries were used for searching the articles. A detail of keywords-based strings is given in Appendix 1. We included eight search systems: Scopus, Web of Science, EBSCOhost, Science direct, SAGE, Willey-Blackwell, Taylor & Francis, and Springer databases. We searched the fields like title, abstract, and keywords in all databases. Using multiple databases ensures no article related to FinTech in small businesses is missed. Searching from databases using predefined keywords, as many widely used databases as possible, should be considered to ensure comprehensiveness [70, 159]. After applying search queries in multiple databases, we identified 3741 articles in the English language. We imported all citations into the Mendeley desktop application.

After removing the duplicates, we had 3219 articles. After applying the screening criteria of journal ranking, we had 1358 articles. After removing the duplicates in Mendeley application and applying the screening criteria, we looked at the title of the articles in the first step. Articles were excluded if they were not directly related to small business and FinTech. After performing the first step, if there was still a lack of clarity, we moved to the second step. In the second step, we looked at the abstracts of articles. Again, we excluded those articles unrelated to FinTech in the context of small businesses. After performing the second step, we read the article thoroughlt. We finally selected 103 articles based on the best fit/purpose.

Articles that discussed startups exclusively were excluded. Rather, we set out to focus on traditional small businesses that are setup to seek profit immediately to survive rather than startups that often have investors and venture capitalists supporting them. We assume that startups may have greater access to information on technology, finance, and the market than conventional small businesses. The articles focusing on the end customer and investor were also excluded. A sample list of excluded articles is provided in Appendix 2.

In the third step, we read all 103 articles in full. Details of each article were entered into a spreadsheet for analysis. We included the detail of research objectives, FinTech type, nature of research, methodology, and empirical context. Each article's research focus or underlying question was found using an inductive approach. We examined particular research objectives, implications, and conclusions to identify a focus. We inductively develop themes based on the understanding of the research focus. In the study, we looked for the FinTech service/business model under consideration to identify the FinTech sub-category. Classification of evidence types (empirical/non-empirical) wasundertaken to determine the nature of the research [30]. We looked into each empirical article’s methodology section to identify the methodology and empirical context. We have included details related to how data has been collected (data collection techniques) and analyzed. For empirical context, we have included the details of data sources. A detailed analysis of the final sample is given in Appendix 3.

As the last step, the data extracted from the articles were analyzed and overall finding were synthesized and reported. To ensure rigor and avoid any subjective bias, each author independently reviewed the spreadsheet and coded the details in the spreadsheet. A common consensus was used to develop themes in case of the difference.

The findings from the synthesis are presented in the following sections. All the steps involved in the review are shown in Table 1.

Table 1.

Methodological framework for review

Steps	Activity	Description
Defining research questions		RQ1: What are the major areas or themes of literature focusing on small business and FinTech linkages? RQ2: What are the future research avenues in small businesses and FinTech research?
Establishing the scope and boundaries of the review	Scope	Journal articles, English, Empirical and conceptual articles
	Conceptual boundaries	Defining small businesses
	Keywords	Small business-related keywords  small businesses, small enterprises, small firms, SME, microbusinesses, micro-business, microenterprises, micro-enterprises, micro firms, small entrepreneurs, microentrepreneurs, micro-entrepreneur, retailers, merchants FinTech-related keywords  FinTech, mobile payment, digital payment, mobile money, mobile wallet, digital lending, digital loan, online lending, online loan, digital finance, online finance, internet-based finance, peer to peer lending, P2P lending, peer to peer loan, P2P loan, crowdfunding, crowdlending, cryptocurrency, crypto payment, initial coin offering
	Timeframe	Articles published from 2008 to 2023
Identification, screening, and selection of literature	Identification using keywords	Eight databases were searched using search strings based on keywords Total results = 3741
	Screening against quality	After the removal of duplication, articles appearing in the journals having rank >  = 2 (CABS AJG2021) Articles after removing duplicate = 3219 Articles after applying journal ranking criteria = 1358
	Selection against purpose/fit	By screening the title, abstract, and full article and applying inclusion and exclusion criteria The final number of articles for review = 103
Reporting	Analysis and synthesis	Descriptive summary of related trends and inductive thematic analysis of literature

Descriptive summary

Research trends

Our review found the literature spread across two FinTech service categories: payments and finance. Figure 1 shows the overall growth and comparative growth of literature across two categories in the context of small businesses. Although our review start from 2008 but surprisingly in our review sample we observe the pulication growth from2015 onwards only.

Fig. 1.

Development of FinTech research in the context of small businesses

Articles related to the finance category accounted for nearly three-fourths of the sample. They referred to how small businesses use internet-based finance like crowdfunding and P2P lending as alternative means of financing. It also included online supply chain finance and invoice trading.

In comparison, articles related to the payment category accounted for around one-fourth of the identified literature and focused on how small businesses use these payment services. Mobile payment is widely studied; among mobile payment mobile money, mobile wallet and mobile payment in general has been studied. One article explores crypto-based payment like bitcoin [83]. A detailed distribution is given in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2.

Distribution of articles across various FinTech sub-categories

Increased digital offerings in form of customized products and business models have resulted in the rise in global adotion of FinTech by small businesses. Various payment and financing options like point of sales based payment, QR code based, near field communication (NFC) based payments,embedded finance, marketplace leing have penetrated the SME market and resulted in the growth of FinTech adoption among SME. The COVID-19 pandemic has also been as major push in the rise in adoption of FinTech services [14]. In our review also we can observe a gradual increase in the publications in the early years and jump in the period of 2020–2022.

The articles in our sample are published across various disciplines. Figure 3 illustrates an area-wise distribution of journal articles based on the source category provided in the AJG2021 list. We have also referred journal webpage in case if any category was not clear. Perhaps unsurprinsingly, most of the research comes from the fields of finance, information systems and entpreneurship. A list of all journals considered for this review with the number of articles published has been provided in Appendix 4.

Fig. 3.

Distribution of articles across various source disciplines

Methodological trends

Classification of evidence types (empirical/non-empirical) was dependent upon the use of empirical or conceptual data in the article [30]. Amongst the sample related to the payment category, 27 articles (96.42%) are empirical, while one article used an analytical model to discuss research in context [50]. Among the articles identified under the finance category, 59 articles (78.67%) were empirical, and 16 (21.33%) used analytical models/mathematical modeling.

Among the methods represented in our article set under both FinTech sub-categories, the quantitative research design was dominating approach (69 articles). Ten articles used qualitative research design, and five used qualitative and quantitative design combinations. Three articles used hybrid methods, while one article used design experiments. A detailed breakup is given in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4.

Distribution of articles based on the research method

In our review, we observed that most of the studies (17 articles) on payment have used the quantitative design. As most the studies are validating or extending adoption theories for the payment domain, survey-based and other quantitative designs seem to be appropriate. Among other methods, five studies used a qualitative design, and three studies used both designs in combination. Two studies used hybrid methods.

In articles related to finance, most studies used secondary databases as the data source. The availability of secondary data such as loan descriptions, crowdfunding campaign descriptions, and other loan-related data from platforms through API and web crawling provides a greater opportunity for empirical estimations using econometric techniques. In our review these secondary database-based research has widely appeared in finance and economics journals that heavily rely on empirical estimation-based studies.

A detailed breakup of distribution of articles across two fintech subcategories is given in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5.

Distribution of articles based on data sources

Research published in entrepreneurship journals also had widely used secondary databases as data source. Analytical modeling has been a preferred study method for research appearing in operations and supply chain journals in studying operational decisions in supply chain finance. A detailed distribution of methods within the discipline is given in Fig. 6 below.

Fig. 6.

Distribution of methods within source disciplines

Empirical context

In payment-related articles, data from micro retailers and merchants have served for empirical analysis in various geographies. In the Asian region, countries like India, Taiwan, Malaysia, and South Korea were used as a context for conducting empirical studies on mobile payments. The development of the digital economy across Asia and the rising adoption of FinTech payment services are attracting researchers to explore these services in these regions.

In our review, among the Asian economies India is the focus in highest number of articles related to mobile payment. One of the possible reasons could be the rise of mobile payment services in India. India’s digital payment has grown up at annual rate of 50% in last five year and has reached to market size of US$ 510.1 Billion in 2022. This market is also expected to grow with approximately 27% average growth rate in next five years [75, 87].

While in the African region, countries like Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Mozambique were used as an empirical context for researching mobile money. Africa accounts for 70% of world’s mobile money value [135]. The development of M-Pesa and similar kind of mobile money services has made Sub Saharan African region as major empirical context to carry out research. In the European region Spain, France was used as an empirical context for studying mobile payments, and the Netherlands for studying crypto payments. A detailed breakup is given in the Fig. 7.

Fig. 7.

Distribution of payment-related articles across geography

In the articles related to the finance category, researchers have predominantly used China as an empirical context and the USA after that. In last two decades China has become world leader in the digital finance. T Emergence of Ant Group is associated with the development of large financial ecosystem and has made China a major and important empirical context in Fintech research [144]. In China, data from the platforms like renrendai.com, JD.com, Ant-financial, Taobao, and panel data of firms have been used in the empirical analysis.

North American region specially USA dominates crowdfunding market and account for nearly 29% of global share [66]. With increased adoption of peer to peer (P2P) lending platforms, USA is dominating in the same space also [60]. The development of these crowdfunding and lending services in the USA post-financial crisis has attracted researchers to study these platforms and services. Data from LendingClub, Prosper.com, and Kiva were used in the USA as empirical context.

European countries like the UK, France, and Italy; Asian Countries like India and Indonesia; OECD Countries and West African countries were also used as empirical context in articles related to FinTech-based finacial sevcices. Studies have used data from FinTech platforms like MarketInvoice, Funding Circle, and Crowdcube as well as loan data from the lending platform as an empirical context. Few studies have used multi-country contexts and few have not specified any country context also. A detailed breakup is given in Fig. 8

Fig. 8.

Distribution of finance-related articles across geography

Overall spread of FinTech across geography is shown in Fig. 9 below.

Fig. 9.

Overall geographical distribution of articles

Thematic analysis

We identified four conceptual themes of common interest to FinTech research in the context of small businesses (a) usage of FinTech payment services by small businesses, (b) impact of FinTech payment services on small businesses, (c) usage of FinTech financial services by small businesses; and (d) impact of FinTech financial services on small businesses. We next discuss each of the themes in more detail.

Theme 1: Usage of FinTech payment services

Under this theme, we identified two sub-themes, antecedents of adoption and continuous use. Each theme is discussed in detail in the following sections.

Antecedent of adoption

For the successful diffusion of FinTech payment services, merchants and small retailers must adopt the same first. Researchers have focused on finding the antecedents of the usage of these services by small businesses. All the studies in this category, except one [83], seem to focus on the antecedents of mobile-based payment adoption in small businesses. Due to the nature and certain constraints of small businesses, the adoption of mobile payment services is mainly motivated by technological characteristics like accessibility and ease of use [33, 126], cost of technology [33, 120, 122, 169], usefulness/utility [104, 160, 169]. The very nature of payment technology and its complexity [56, 122, 174], compatibility with technology [56, 160], and risk with technology [145] influence the adoption decisions. Transaction time [122, 126] and transaction security [56, 120, 122] also influence the adoption decision of small businesses.

The technological aspect of payment technologies does not just influence the adoption of these mobile payment services; other internal and external factors of firms also influence small business decisions. Factors like small business owners/CEO characteristics, the firm's characteristics, and other external environmental factors affect small businesses' adoption of mobile payment services.

Personal factors like previous experience with technology [104], trust in technology [101, 169], demographic factors like age, gender, and education [33, 145, 168], innovativeness, and awareness of merchants [120] influence their decision while adopting mobile payment services.

Firm characteristics like the financial health of a firm [104], size, nature, age, and location of the business [33, 168], organization structure, organization resources, and internal management [56] also influence the adoption decisions.

The decision to use these services is not limited to internal factors; external factors like a critical mass of customers and customer pressure [168, 174], competitive pressure from the industry environment [56, 168], assistance by payment platform [174] and facilitating conditions [145] as the macro environment at ecosystem level like technical infrastructure [56], regulatory and policy environment [56, 120, 174], promotion of technology by the non-regulatory actor of the ecosystem [120] are some of the critical factors which govern the adoption and usage of mobile payment in small businesses.

There is only one study on the adoption of crypto payment by small online retailers [83]. It highlighted the role played by technology-related factors like accessibility and net transactional benefit of crypto payment and external factors like consumer base of crypto payment services in adoption.

The antecedents of continuous usage

Dayour et al. [40] discussed the antecedents of continuous mobile money usage by small and medium tourism and hospitality enterprises through their study. They found that technology-related factors like effort expectancy, performance expectancy, technology risk, and price; personal factors like habit, hedonic motivation, and awareness; and external factors like infrastructure are the factors that influence continuous use. While discussing the barriers to the constant use of mobile money, Hamdan et al. [68] highlighted that insufficient availability of mobile money services in terms of agent density and network coverage and high average transaction fee hinder the use of mobile money services.

Theme 2: Impact of FinTech payment services on small businesses

In this section, we discuss the impact of FinTech-based payment services on small businesses. We report the impact at two levels, the micro level, which is at the firm level, and other at the macro level.

Micro-level impacts

The use of FinTech services results in some micro-level impact at the firm level. These payment services help in increasing the sales volume through more customer engagement. The use of mobile wallet by retailers offers strategic potential in terms of customer engagement. Adoption of these contactless payments allows the customer to do even the smallest transaction [22], offering facilitating conditions for more customer engagement by the merchants. Retailers can directly engage with customers on a single integrated touchpoint and enhance their understanding of customer needs and want [96]. Increased customer engagement mediated through these technologies results in increased sales [3, 22, 96] and higher profit margins [50] hence improving the economic performance of unorganized retailers [3].

Using mobile money accounts combined with financial training increases female microentrepreneurs' profits and financial security through improved bookkeeping, reduced transfers to relatives, and increased savings [12].

The use of mobile money connects businesses with suppliers and customers and enhances information flows between economic agents. It attenuates enforcement frictions and provides more liquidity, allowing them to lend to customers. This increased demand results in investment [77, 78]. These reduced credit constraints enable firms to invest more in new products, organizational methods, and practices, ultimately leading to firms' innovations [110].

Mobile payment services also offer informal benefits by creating social value through affordances to retailers in terms of the convenience of not carrying cash, resulting in more social security through reduced physical theft and past reflection of their expenses [6, 136]. Increased awareness toward these services resulting from the benefit of these services has developed the interest in learning new skills and trust in financial services [6].

Macro level impacts

Mobile technology also allows for mitigating the inefficiency of marketing channels by providing customization in the form of reminders, peer references, and data sharing [47]. Through saving accounts and credit access, mobile money alleviates the financial constraints that allow microentrepreneurs to learn new skills and well-being, providing an opportunity for self-employment and, ultimately, the development of entrepreneurship [7, 88, 92].

Theme 3: Usage of FinTech financial services

Under this theme, we found four major themes: antecedents of adoption, antecedents of successful funding, antecedents of default, and antecedents of operational decisions during service use. These are explained in detail below.

Antecedents of adoption

Small businesses seek various modes of finance to meet various capital requirements. Informal finance and traditional finance (banks, micro-financial institutions) have been the major sources for years. With the development of internet-based finance, credit availability has become easy for small businesses. Ease of use and usefulness of crowdfunding influence user behavior and intention. Ease of use is an essential stimulus that encourages crowdfunding usage by creating the perception of usefulness in thinking and motivates a user to use crowdfunding again [44].

Many have switched from traditional finance to FinTech-based ones. The switching behavior of small businesses from traditional finance to crowdfunding is mainly driven by the convenience (speed, flexibility, simplicity) and transparency (clarity, ease, sufficient information) of crowdfunding services [113]. This incremental decision-making to choose FinTech services like P2P lending over bank loans is shown by firms characterized by high credit ratings, smaller size, and lower capital expenditures [32]. Firms raising new investment benefit by initially going to crowdfunding for low funding target and shorter campaign period and then choosing bank financing. By choosing to crowdfund for initial funding, the firm gets an idea about demand, which helps in production. Later, firms go for bank financing to meet higher funding targets [115].

Among various financing options, firms in their early stage and with low funding targets choose equity crowdfunding. In comparison, a firm with established operations and a higher need for funds to finance its growth choose debt financing [94]. When raising funds for new product development, crowdfunding is a dominant strategy only in a longer sales window and higher financing target; otherwise, in the case of short sales window and higher funding targets, the manufacturer prefers bank financing [31].

In contrast to the majority of literature, Yan et al. [185] reported that bank credit financing in an online marketplace is more beneficial than trading credit and e-commerce credit financing. In case of no bank access to a retailer, e-commerce credit financing is beneficial.

Discussing the decision criteria for selecting industry 4.0 technologies in FinTech-based supply chain finance, Soni et al. [161] proposed a decision framework. Small businesses choose technologies that help in inventory control, environmental costs, and stakeholder engagement to reap the benefits of FinTech-based supply chain finance.

While discussing the barriers and challenges of blockchain adoption for supply chain finance in SME, Kaur et al. [86] have identified technological, organizational, security, knowledge, external and financial barriers. Among these technological barriers, tech infrastructure, lack of automation and standardization, etc., are the most significant. Organizational barriers like resistance to a new system, unskilled workforce, etc., are the second most influential among barriers.

Previous experiences in crowdfunding shape user behavior. Female business borrowers do not face discrimination from lenders at the P2P platform; however, the anticipation of fear of rejection and higher interest rates for reapplied loans discourage female borrowers more than men while reapplying for the loans [24].

Antecedents of successful funding

Under this theme, we summarize the articles focusing on successful funding predictors. Factors like entrepreneurial/enterprise signals, linguistic signals, strategic use of social media, personal information, and campaign characteristics affect the success of getting funds. By signal, we mean the characteristics/attributes that small borrowers show to the investors/funders.

Entrepreneurial/enterprise signals are very important in getting funds from backers/lenders. Those micro-enterprises showing autonomy, competitive aggressiveness, and risk-taking have more chances of getting funding as early as possible. In contrast, microenterprises that signal conscientiousness, courage, empathy, and warmth have fewer chances to get funds in P2P microfinance [124]. Similarly, Italian firms' entrepreneurial alertness and entrepreneurial self-efficacy help network and develop market and product knowledge, which in turn help in campaign offering and ultimately funding success in equity crowdfunding [170].

Business-related characteristics also affect funding success. There is a difference in the funding success of old and new small businesses. New businesses receive less support than existing businesses and can signal their creditworthiness through loan descriptions [132]. The firm's size and financial health also affect the funding success in the crowdlending project of renewable energy [15]. The proximity of the firm to local innovation systems also helps in crowdfunding success [13].

Another kind of signal that plays a vital role in the success of a crowdfunding/crowdlending campaign is linguistic features. In funding a hybrid venture (which creates economic and social value both), even lenders are more oriented toward hybrid value. However, a hybrid linguistic description reduces the chances of funding; the description in any category has more chances of getting funds [123]. The readability and understandability of text narratives promote good funding outcomes [175]. Pengnate & Riggins [139] reported that sophisticated language in text description makes the description more creditworthy and informative. It reduces the funding time in lending. While reporting contrasting views, Wang et al. [175] reported that using simple words and short sentences to describe the projects has a higher likelihood of funding success. Spelling and grammatical errors increase funding time and reduce the chances of funding [131, 139].

Social media has an important role in the success of crowdfunding campaigns. Network management through various social media enhances campaign success [71]. Proactive and innovative firms use social media channels strategically to incorporate innovative ideas and spread product awareness through marketing and customer engagement, resulting in higher chances of success [39, 151].

Characteristics of the campaign also affect funding success. A firm with good pitch quality of the campaign and a higher number of rewards has a higher probability of successful funding in crowdfunding projects of creative industries [71]. In renewable energy projects, the financial characteristics of the campaign, like the loan amount requested and the interest rate quoted, are the predictor of successful funding [15]. In reward-based crowdfunding, the adoption of product sampling for crowdfunding campaigns positively affects fundraising performance. Product sampling signals the founder's confidence in fulfilling the campaign and informs backers, addressing their quality concerns. This leads to more backers and higher funds as an investment [109].

Personal information the small business borrowers provide also helps to obtain funds successfully. Signals like employment, income, house ownership, and photo of borrowers help in crowdfunding [89]. While providing offline contact information, pictures on a webpage work as cues for trust and help get funds successfully [112]. Loans framed by refugee status achieve higher funding success in P2P social lending [48]. The gender identity of entrepreneurs also plays a significant role in funding success. The crowdfunding performance of female entrepreneurs is improved when a moderate amount of masculinity is displayed; however, it is detrimental to fundraising performance if employed extensively in cyberspace. Imitating masculine-led norms helps female entrepreneurs get more interest, legitimacy, and support [177].

Small businesses face various challenges during the operation of crowdfunding campaigns. Knowledge differences because of information asymmetry and lack of common shared understanding pose significant challenges [42]. Through knowledge management mechanisms, small businesses can use crowdfunding services effectively. Small businesses learn while using FinTech services. For instance, small business managers try to adjust the lower interest from previous experience in P2P lending [103].

Antecedents of default

The risk of default has always been a significant concern in small businesses. There are various reasons for small businesses defaulting the loans in traditional finance. With the development of FinTech financial services for small businesses as alternative financing, new insights regarding the antecedents/predictors of default are possible. Interest rates and duration of loans play an essential role in explaining the default probability in small business finance [45, 152]. Apart from these, borrowers' profiles (gender, income, home ownership) and formal regulations imposed by regulatory agencies also explain the probability of default [152].

Antecedents of operational decisions during service use

Small businesses are a crucial part of any supply chain. Small businesses must be funded sufficiently to improve the supply chain's efficiency. Small businesses seek finance in terms of trade credit or bank loans to maintain inventory and cash flows. With the emergence of FinTech technologies, FinTech-based supply chain finance has emerged as an alternative source of supply chain finance. In the supply chain, small businesses are funded by a third-party platform (P2P lending platform), or an e-commerce platform finances the online sellers. In such cases, it is imperative to understand the operational decision of supply chain partners.

In the case of P2P lending platform-backed supply chain finance, capital-constrained retailers' optimal decision of purchase orders to the manufacturer is governed by the interest rate and service charges offered by the lending platform [58, 164, 173].

Government policy intervention affects the decisions in these third-party platforms- backed supply chain finance. Reza-Gharehbagh et al. [149] analyzed that, through hybrid interventions, on the one hand, the government can put import tariffs on foreign supply products which will discourage foreign supply chains. On the other hand, the government can give subsidies to FinTech platforms which can be transferred to small business owners in terms of low-interest rates. Such interventions help to promote green product development as third-party platform sets service rate based on policy decisions, and these service rate help finance small firms for green product development [148].

In the world of the platform economy, with the rise of e-commerce, it has become essential for e-commerce platforms to ensure smooth and efficient operations of the supply chain. To ensure efficiency in the supply chain, e-commerce has started to facilitate supply chain finance for small sellers and, with the help of FinTech-commerce platforms, started financing sellers. In their work, Gong et al. [63] theoretically established that platform-based financing is a win–win situation for both platform and the seller. Capital-constrained sellers will get financing, which will help increase the sales order. At the same time, the platform can earn profit through interest offered through financing and sales on the platform of the seller's product [183]. While studying the impact of free riding and online finance adoption on the decision of supply chain partners, Yan et al. [184] analyzed that adopting such practices also brings competition to the e-commerce platform. With such financing, the supply of products will be higher, and retailers can sell the product both online and offline; therefore, for e-commerce platforms, it is necessary to put more effort into gaining a larger share of sales.

While discussing pricing strategies in reward-based crowdfunding by small servicing manufacturers, Jiang et al. [81] theoretically explained that during fundraising through reward-based crowdfunding servicing, the manufacturer has a choice of either using a product line that offers customized services and pricing or no product line. When there is no product line manufacturer adjusts price and quality according to low-evaluation customers to make up profits and funds because of a higher number of low-evaluation customers. While in the product line strategy, low and high-evaluation customers have utility, and prices and quality are decided accordingly.

Theme 4: Impact of FinTech financial services on small businesses

In this section, we discuss the impact of FinTech-based payment services on small businesses. We report the impact at three levels micro level, which is at the firm level, the meso level, and the macro level.

Micro level impacts

FinTech eases firms' financing constraints by interacting with the existing financial system through alleviating information asymmetry in both the supply and demand sides by stimulating market competition among existing financial institutions and replacing some functions of the existing traditional financial system [67]. This reduced information asymmetry between banks and firms and increased competition between banks lead to corporate debt financing benefits by alleviating the financial constraints and reducing the debt financing cost [28].

Alleviation of these financial constraints increases corporate investment efficiency [74, 107] hence simulating corporate innovation among small Chinese firms in an underdeveloped region of China.

Reduced information asymmetry makes lending to SMEs easier, including loans for green projects that banks generally consider risky, hence reducing corporate carbon emissions [176]. These practices help SMEs transition to sustainable business models [140].

These FinTech services improve the efficiency of small businesses by facilitating loans at lower rates, reducing wealth advisory fees, search costs for loans, and foreign currency transfer fees; higher liquidity allows small businesses to invest more and hence improves the firm's efficiency [1]. Countries with higher tendencies to take risks result in more innovation, thus a more significant number of FinTech startups, through better institutional quality in any country, more investment in FinTech startups, a greater supply of finance, and higher small business efficiency [1, 2].

By alleviating financial frictions arising from collateral and borrowing constraints, FinTech enhances small and medium-sized enterprises' financial access, stimulating their productivity growth [84] and increasing their financial performance [181]. While studying the impact of equity crowdfunding on innovation and growth in small businesses, Eldridge et al. [46] found that funding and crowd wisdom allow small businesses to innovate regarding product development and new skills, resulting in growth.

These FinTech innovations can significantly reduce the financial risk of small firms by creating a resource effect in the form of alleviating corporate finance constraints and governance effect by reducing inefficient investments [189]. FinTech reduces the corporate debt default risk of small firms. Due to poor organizational structures and information ambiguity, small firms are forced to raise funds from informal financial institutions at a higher cost, increasing the debt default risk. FinTech effectively solves the complex and expensive financing for small firms by providing easy access of funds [129], improving information transparency through enhanced quality and quantity of information, and mitigating financial leverage by using a more accurate risk assessment model [79]. Increased access to credit decreases the small firm's volatility as firms getting finance through FinTech don't go bankrupt [29].

A crisis like a pandemic brings cash shortages among SMEs and makes them vulnerable. Access to finance may shield them from such a crisis. FinTech, through its flexible cash flows, protects SMEs more than traditional finance [191]. Digital finance improves corporate resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic by mitigating financing frictions and providing more access to finance. This increased access lessens the severity of loss and accelerates the recovery time [182].

While reporting a contrary view to the literature, Fasano & Cappa [52] highlighted that banking FinTech increases information asymmetry problems instead of reducing them using complex standardization information. When banks use problematic information in their debt contract negotiations, Italian SMEs are less likely to obtain the financial resources necessary to carry on their activities or achieve growth opportunities. Hence, they report a low level of bank debt.

Meso-Level Impacts

With zero manual intervention and online risk control, FinTech has increased the number of small businesses obtaining loans [187]. With the rise of these financial technologies, competition between banks and FinTech firms has become evident and alleviated the financial constraints of small businesses in China by offering more loans to small businesses [111]. These competitive situations in China are making banks change their strategies. Banks collaborate with FinTech firms and extensively use financial technologies to deliver loans to small businesses. The technical advantage of FinTech helps reduce information asymmetry and create a spillover effect, allowing banks to provide more loans [158] and facilitate bank credit expansion [180].

Borrowers denied by traditional banks approached FinTech lenders. While banks base their lending on past relationships and constrain around branches, FinTech doesn't have any geographical constraints [49], hence reducing the supply-side disparity.

Weak trust in small businesses is a big issue in supply chain finance. Through their work, Jiang et al. [80] analyzed that electronic payment vouchers (EPV) issued by blockchain can transmit trust in blockchain-based supply chain finance. Decentralized finance (DeFi) solution for supply chain finance addresses financing costs and lack of access to funding by resolving the information asymmetry and asynchrony in conventional finance [117].

Macro level impacts

Nonbank lenders, i.e., FinTech lenders, almost perfectly offset the decline in bank lending during the financial crisis. In regions where bank dependence was high and saw a more significant drop after the 2008 crisis, FinTech expanded in these regions [65]. FinTech innovations like crowdfunding have emerged as a potential alternative finance source for creative industries to test and develop the project [34]. With the development of such internet-based finance methods, the number of small businesses receiving credit has increased. In the USA, financial innovations like online lending are helpful for small businesses as these FinTech have great innovation and growth potential, allowing them to provide more small business loans [10]. Marketplace lending significantly raises entrepreneurship by relaxing credit market frictions, especially in regions with lower access to traditional bank credit [36].

FinTech innovations like P2P lending can potentially develop microenterprises and hence the market. P2P-based social lending creates a sense of "to do things for the community," which ultimately helps to build micro-entrepreneurship [26]. These FinTech platforms facilitate micro-enterprises development by investing savings into loans, allowing microbusinesses to overcome financial stress, enabling accumulated knowledge sharing and resource pooling, and creating equal opportunity for men and women [102]. Inclusive digital finance alleviates financing and information constraints of microentrepreneurs. The digital nature of these services allows work flexibility, easing family conflicts of female entrepreneurs with household responsibilities, and helps them familiarize themselves with digital exchange and transaction processes. These benefits inspire them to start businesses and develop entrepreneurship [186].

The transition from traditional finance to Internet finance reduces information asymmetry and cost risks, increasing the number of micro and small enterprises obtaining loans. Through capital accumulation, SMEs allocate resources for more production, employment, and consumption, which has an aggregate effect on the economy [187].

Future research directions

The review highlights that the FinTech literature in the context of small businesses is spread across two sub-categories of FinTech services: payment and finance. We identified two significant themes among these categories: usage and impact. Under usage of payment services, we have found that the focus of most of the research has been around antecedents of payment used in small businesses. The review finds that technology-related factors like cost, ease of use, nature of technology, utility, etc.; personal characteristics like age, gender, etc.; firm-related factors like size of the firm, age of firm, etc.; and other contextual factors like regulations, assistance from technology providers, etc. These technologies result in increased customer engagement, sales, profit, entrepreneurship and skills development, cost reduction, and secure transaction.

In our review, we found that studies about the usage of the finance category have focused on various topics such as antecedents of adoption for selecting FinTech technology, entrepreneurial orientation, firm-related characteristics, campaign-related characteristics, linguistic features, strategic use of social media, etc., for successful funding.

Antecedents of default like interest rate, personal profile of the borrower, and operational decisions during service use have also been studied. The review also highlights that by using these technology-based services, small businesses have better and increased access to finance, which was not earlier available. With improved credit availability, these services help to enhance efficiency, development of skills, and entrepreneurship and innovation in small businesses.

In light of our literature review, we offer suggestions for future research. We begin with general recommendations for research and then provide suggestions on each of the themes introduced in the previous section.

The growth in the publication of research related to FinTech in the context of small businesses is continuous, and there is an increase in the number of articles each year. In our sample, we have covered till January 2023, and as the technology continues to diffuse and small businesses see it as a viable alternative, this trend is likely to continue.

Most studies in the payments category have focused on mobile payments. One of the possible reasons for this could be the development of the mobile payment ecosystem with the help of technology providers, mobile operators, and government agencies in various economies to facilitate other business models of sharing economy that have become worth exploring. Government regulations and uncertainties around crypto payment discourage its usage in business transactions. This is one of the possible reasons we haven't come across studies related to crypto payments, except for one article discussing cryptocurrency payments.

In articles related to finance, most of the research has focused on crowdfunding and P2P lending and digital finance. One of the possible reasons for this trend is the development of alternative financing platforms like crowdfunding and P2P lending in the USA and China after the 2008 financial crisis. Other forms of internet-based financing, like invoice factoring, blockchain-based supply chain financing, etc., have recently emerged. Future research can take up these sub-categories and have studies focusing on different business models and their implications in the context of small businesses.

Most of the research on small businesses and FinTech has appeared in journals related to operations, information systems, entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, economics, and innovation-related journals. More research related to the social aspect in the context of small businesses can be published in the economics and social sciences journal.

Based on the review, we produce a framework that describes the current literature of FinTech in context of small businesses. As shown in Fig. 10, through our framework we explain the usage of two FinTech subcategories i.e. payment and finance in small businesses and their impact at different level i.e. micro, meso and macro level in context of small businesses. We identify six areas for future research based on the trends found in our review, including more focus on (a) methods; (b) geographical distribution; (c) multiple stakeholder’s perspectives; (d) usage of FinTech based payment services; (e) usage of FinTech based payment services; and (f) impact of FinTech services. These key areas are outlined in Table 2, along with examples of relevant research questions, and suggestions for future studies.

Fig. 10.

A framework of current literature on small businesses and FinTech

Table 2.

Direction for future research on small businesses and FinTech

Focus area	Key observation(s)	Illustrative research questions/recommendations for future research
Methods	Current research is geared towards quantitative designs	Use of Configurational methods like qualitative comparative analysis (QCA)  Use of computational methods like agent-based modeling, system dynamics  Use of hybrid research methods  Use of case study designs for theory building
Geographical Distribution	Current research in payment categories is more focused towards Asia and Africa  Current research in finance category is more focused towards China and USA	Future research in payment categories can focus on Europe and USA also  Future research in finance categories can focus on Asia pacific economies also
Multiple Stakeholder’s Perspective	Current research has been studied from single perspective	Future research can explore multiple stakeholders’ perspective i.e., platform, regulators, policy, market mechanisms. Some of the illustrative questions can be as follow  How government-led policies and government-supported innovation hubs help in the financial inclusion of small businesses and the growth of the FinTech ecosystem for small businesses?  How unregulated and unethical market practices can be mitigated through regulatory frameworks?  What is the role of platform designs and configurations in mitigations of biases?  How can platform interoperability and configurations help small businesses in their entire business cycle?  What is the effect of post usage activities like loan recovery and collection mechanism, reminder mechanism in platform growth and market development?  How collaboration and co-opetition mechanisms develop value networks and the FinTech market for small businesses?
Usage of FinTech based Payment Services	Current research is more focused towards antecedent of adoptions	Future research can explore barriers towards these services as they can be totally different from antecedents of adoptions. Future research can also explore post service usage experience in payment services. Some of the illustrative questions can be as follow  What are the factors for resistance of supply chain partners in using mobile payment services?  What are the reasons for small businesses' post-usage satisfaction/dissatisfaction with payment services?  How incentives and promotion by the FinTech platforms affect the supply chain partner's behavior and perception towards mobile payment services over time?
Usage of FinTech based Financial Services	Current research is more focused towards antecedents of adoption and successful funding	Future research can explore more on barriers, decision making process of small businesses and their experiences while using these services. Some of the illustrative questions can be as follow  What are the factors responsible for non-adoption of FinTech based financial services in small businesses?  How small businesses choose among various FinTech based financing options?  How small businesses What are the post usage experiences in FinTech based financial services and how these experiences shape the overall sustainability of ecosystem?
Impact of FinTech services	Current research in payment and finance category is more focused on micro level impacts	Future research can explore more on meso level and macro level impacts like systematic effects on overall economy, risk and liabilities, socio-cultural changes with use of FinTech based payment and financial services

Direction on methods

Literature analysis shows that most payment-related studies were conducted using a survey technique. One of the possible reasons could be the selection of a variance-based model for explaining FinTech adoption and usage in small businesses. In comparison, few studies used a hybrid approach [56, 174].

In articles related to finance, most studies used secondary data as the data source. One of the possible reasons for using such a quantitative design could be the availability of secondary data through API and web crawling. The availability of loan descriptions, crowdfunding campaign descriptions, and other loan-related data through platforms makes research design more geared towards quantitative designs. In the qualitative design case studies, ethnography is used to study FinTech in the context of small businesses. One of the possible explanations for this trend could be the emerging nature of FinTech research. To explain and develop theories related to these innovations, researchers explore the phenomena in depth through these interpretive approaches.

Future research can also rely on other forms of methodology like machine learning, social media analytics, configurational methods like qualitative comparative analysis, and computational methods like agent-based modeling and system dynamics. These methods alone or combined will help better explain the complexity [16] associated with FinTech services usage and impact [27]. Future research can take up more qualitative designs like an interpretive case study and mixed methods design for deep understanding and explanation of phenomena related to these FinTech services and models in the context of small businesses.

Direction on the geographical distribution

In our review, payment-related articles focus more on developing economies where payment ecosystems scale and perform well. The aspirational nature of these economies and the need for financial inclusion and banking for all in these countries have given rise to digital infrastructure. This infrastructure is facilitating the development of FinTech entrepreneurship. The transition of these economies from cash to digital payment is an opportunity for researchers to look deeper into these avenues.

With the rise of app-based and platform economies across all geographies, significant growth has been observed in digital payments. In countries like the USA, where physical cards and cash have been essential modes of payment transactions, other forms of mobile payment, like contactless payment and mobile wallets, are observing significant growth. Future research can also take up these developed economies as an empirical context. Future research can also take cross-country studies for comparative analysis among developed and developing economies. These studies can help policymakers and FinTech developers to understand technology use in different economic and social settings.

In articles related to finance, the primary focus has been on China and USA. The possible justification for China could be that the rise of the digital economy in the last two decades has provided a more significant opportunity for researchers to study the digital transformation of financial services in China. Similarly, more crowdfunding and lending platforms allow the researcher to take up the studies in the USA context. The recent development of the FinTech ecosystem in economies of South Asia and Southeast Asia can be possible future avenues for the researcher.

Direction for multiple stakeholders' perspectives

FinTech innovations are transforming the financial services market. These innovations are disruptive and evolve through multiple interactions. The development of these innovations does not stand alone. These FinTech innovations are growing through the complex interaction of various heterogeneous actors like market participants, FinTech platforms, regulatory institutions, government, and users of these services. These symbiotic interactions among ecosystem stakeholders contribute to FinTech innovations and lead to various market mechanisms, ultimately benefiting the customer [100]. These complex yet close interactions among multiple stakeholders allow the ecosystem to evolve and forge interdependencies among ecosystem members [137]. To better understand these FinTech innovations, they must be studied from the perspectives of various stakeholders in FinTech ecosystems [157].

Policy and regulations are significant aspects of FinTech. These become much more important and necessary in the context of small businesses. Scholars can contribute more by researching issues like direct and indirect benefits to small businesses from policy decisions. In many countries, there has been the establishment of various innovation hubs by the government to promote FinTech development and growth. Future studies can take up research on how government-led policies and government-supported innovation hubs help in the financial inclusion of small businesses and the growth of the FinTech ecosystem for small businesses.

There have been numerous reports of small businesses being taken advantage of by the increasing number of unregulated digital lending platforms and mobile apps that claim easy and quick loan approval. These reports also discuss exorbitant interest rates, additional charges not disclosed to borrowers, inappropriate collection practices, and the unauthorized use of agreements to access data on borrowers' mobile phones [147]. Future studies can explore this issue in detail by studying how grievance redressal mechanisms through regulations can be made for adequate and fair use of FinTech. There are challenges for regulators regarding small business-like borrowers' data protection and privacy; future research can explore how these challenges can be mitigated through regulatory frameworks.

It is essential to understand the ecosystem from the perspective of FinTech Platforms as they are the critical actor in FinTech Ecosystem. The design & configuration of these platforms affect their business model and growth [82] and, ultimately, the user perception of these services. In FinTech-based financing, where screening borrowers is critical, future research can take up the questions regarding the role of platform design in mitigating the default of small businesses and mitigating social biases. In the case of supply chain finance, future studies can also look at platform interoperability and multilayer configuration to facilitate sales, finance, payment, and other business solutions.

Very little is known about the post services of FinTech platforms; future studies can take up the work in these directions. Scholars can study the loan recovery and collection mechanism, reminder mechanisms, and other configurational aspects of post services in the case of FinTech financial services and payment services. Future studies can explore the role of post services to small businesses in the growth of platforms.

Another promising area for research can be to study various collaboration and co-opetition mechanisms of FinTech platforms. FinTech platforms collaborate and compete simultaneously with various financial institutions and other FinTech platforms. It will be interesting to see how these collaboration and co-opetition mechanisms develop value networks and the FinTech market for small businesses.

Direction on the usage of FinTech payment services

With the development and diffusion of mobile payment services, consumer adoption of mobile payment services is growing, but still, supply chain partners of retailers/merchants resist using mobile payment. In the future, it will be worth exploring the factors that lead to the resistance of supply chain partners to using mobile payment services.

Over the years of development in mobile payment research, it is not yet clear about the post-usage experiences and challenges of small businesses. Due to dissatisfaction with these services' small businesses either switch the platform or get frustrated with these digital payment services. This is detrimental to the future health of payment ecosystems. Future studies can explore the reasons for small businesses' post-usage satisfaction/dissatisfaction with payment services.

Incentives in the form of rewards/offers have become essential in digital platform-based services. It will be interesting for future researchers to explore how incentives and promotion by the FinTech platforms affect the supply chain partner's behavior and perception of mobile payment services over time.

Direction on the usage of FinTech financial services

FinTech financial services have emerged as excellent alternative finance means for small businesses. Our review finds that most studies have focused on antecedents of adoption, successful funding, and operational decisions. Despite its growth potential, there is still resistance among small businesses toward these services. Future research can explore the factors related to the non-adoption of these services.

With the recent development of online finance, small businesses have multiple options, like supply chain finance from an e-commerce platform, invoice trading, equity crowdfunding, and lending from FinTech platforms. Yet, there has been a lack of studies explaining small businesses' decision-making process, from comparing various finance options to choosing the final interest rate. Future studies can understand the decision-making process of small businesses in detail. Future studies can also consider the post-usage experience as it becomes essential for policymakers and platforms to determine what kind of experiences are incremental and detrimental to the overall ecosystem.

Direction on impacts of FinTech innovations in the context of small businesses

FinTech is helping small businesses through financial support. Small businesses are improving their efficiency and innovating to achieve growth with the help of FinTech. Identified literature has focused mainly on the positive aspects of FinTech in the context of small businesses. Research in the broader FinTech literature has also explored the opposing sides of FinTech services [57]. Issues related to platformed and racialized expropriation [98], racial discrimination [69], geographical segregation [18, 76, 141], and neo-colonialism structuring [25] are of very much concern. Platformisation of payment entails the risks of monopolization and dominance of big tech companies, which can cause geopolitical imbalance [53]. Future studies can explore the dark and negative side of FinTech, like the digital divide, surveillance, and cyber threats like data breaches in the context of small businesses at both micro and macro levels.

Another promising research area is to explore the impact of FinTech in addressing various social and gender biases in the development of micro and small entrepreneurship. FinTech, by its nature, provides the inclusive and value-free option to include all gender and demography by avoiding human biases. Hence it will be interesting to see more research on how FinTech helps address social and gender biases.

At the macro level, future research can explore the role of FinTech in employment generation. Future studies can also take the systematic effect of these services in wealth management and asset restructuring of small businesses.

Conclusion

FinTeh is impacting the way many organizations undertake core business activity. For small business it provides a means to overcome longstanding challenges such as access to traditional financial instruments. Small business are shrinking rapidly under pressure to change from large organizations, partly due to more transparent online marketplaces [150], thus FinTech can also become an important part of small business digitalization and competitiveness. The challenge is also that like other technology innovations small business may be left behind. Our review charts the research related to FinTech in the context of small businesses. By providing four conceptual themes across two different FinTech categories: payment and finance, we summarise the past research in various sub-themes like antecedents of use and impact of FinTech payment services, antecedents of adoption, successful funding, default, operational decisions, and impact of FinTech based finance services on small businesses. With the interaction of multiple stakeholders, FinTech ecosystems are evolving; future researchers can contribute to the field by developing their work around identified themes.

Supplementary Information

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Declarations

Conflict of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.