Discrimination and marginalization in the financial services provided by traditional intermediaries are often cited as one of the main causes of persistent income inequality across socioeconomic groups in many countries. Whether Fintech eliminates such prejudice and exclusion and promotes equitable income distribution is unclear. This paper examines the impact of Fintech digital financial services on income inequality. Using a two-step generalized methods-of-moments (GMM) estimator, we analyze unbalanced panel data from 65 countries spanning the years 2013–2019. Drawing on the most recent data available on the actual transaction volume of Fintech digital financial services, we generate evidence at the level of specific service segments. We find that Fintech digital lending and digital capital-raising services are significantly and negatively associated with income inequality. Furthermore, our results from mechanism analysis suggest that Fintech mainly impacts income inequality by improving the accessibility and efficiency of financial services. Overall, our findings imply that promoting Fintech is critical to improving financial inclusion and alleviating income disparity.

中文翻译：

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金融科技红利：数字金融服务将如何影响各国收入不平等？

传统中介机构提供的金融服务中的歧视和边缘化常常被认为是许多国家社会经济群体持续收入不平等的主要原因之一。金融科技能否消除这种偏见和排斥并促进公平的收入分配尚不清楚。本文探讨了金融科技数字金融服务对收入不平等的影响。我们使用两步广义矩量法 (GMM) 估计器，分析了 2013 年至 2019 年 65 个国家的不平衡面板数据。我们利用金融科技数字金融服务实际交易量的最新数据，在特定服务细分领域生成证据。我们发现，金融科技数字借贷和数字融资服务与收入不平等呈显着负相关。此外，我们的机制分析结果表明，金融科技主要通过提高金融服务的可及性和效率来影响收入不平等。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明，推广金融科技对于改善金融包容性和缩小收入差距至关重要。