Financial Inclusion via FinTech: From Digital Payments to Platform Investments

The authors thank Shashwat Alok, Sabine Bernard, Dion Bongaerts, Greg Buchak, John Campbell, Jennifer Carpenter, Darrell Duffie, Bing Han, Baixiao Liu, Jun Liu, Yu-Jane Liu, Wenlan Qian, Jinfei Sheng, Yang Sun, Huan Tang, Shangjin Wei, Luana Zaccaria, Haikun Zhu, Xin Zou, and conference and seminar participants at the European Finance Association 2021, Financial Intermediation Research Society 2021, China International Conference in Finance 2021, Northern Finance Association 2021, China Financial Research Conference 2021, China International Risk Forum 2021, Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research 2022, Summer Institute of Finance 2022, Chinese Finance Annual Meeting 2022, Luiss Finance Workshop 2023, CEIBS Finance and Accounting Symposium 2023, Journal of Finance and Data Science Conference 2023, Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research Capital Market Development, New York University Stern CGEB China Initiative Research Seminar, Luohan Academy Webinar, Asia-Pacific Corporate Finance Workshop, the Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies, Central Banks of the SEACEN Centre, the Bank of Lithuania, Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, Korean University, McGill University, Monash University, PBC School of Finance at Tsinghua University, National School of Development at Peking University, Fudan University, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Renmin University of China, Institute of Financial Studies at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Stevens Institute of Technology, George Mason University, Melbourne University, Deakin University, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences for helpful discussions and comments; Xuan Li and Yijian Sun for excellent research assistance; and the Digital Economy Open Research Platform (www.deor.org.cn) for support. All data was sampled and desensitized and was remotely analyzed on the Ant Open Research Laboratory in an Ant Group Environment, which is only remotely accessible for empirical analysis.