Green Finance Meets FinTech: Mapping the Evolution of a Sustainable Finance Research Frontier
The global commitment to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals has driven increasing integration of sustainability into financial systems worldwide. As climate change becomes more urgent, there is rising pressure to align financial systems with sustainability goals. In this context, green finance and financial technology (FinTech) are often seen as tools that can support more sustainable investment. However, research in this area is still developing and spread across different disciplines, making it difficult to understand how these ideas connect. This study examines existing research on green finance and FinTech through a bibliometric and network analysis. Using a dataset of 168 peer-reviewed papers retrieved from the Scopus database, the study analyses publication trends, key contributors, and relationships between research themes using tools such as Bibliometrix and VOSviewer. The findings show that interest in this field has grown rapidly in recent years, with a large share of research coming from countries such as China and India. While topics like FinTech and green finance appear frequently, newer areas such as artificial intelligence and digital financial systems are also becoming more prominent. At the same time, a key pattern emerges: most studies either focus on how these technologies work or on their broader economic and environmental impact, but rarely connect the two clearly. This suggests that, despite growing attention, there is still limited understanding of how financial technologies translate into real sustainability outcomes. The study highlights the need for more integrated approaches to better understand this relationship.