IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijfss/v13y2025i4p232-d1810068.html

The Impact of Social Trust on the Development of Digital Finance

Author

Listed:
  • Fan Zeng

    (School of Management and Economics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China
    Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank, Guangzhou 510150, China)

  • Benyong Hu

    (School of Management and Economics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China)

Abstract

Social trust is a fundamental element in the evolution of digital finance, significantly influencing its development. This study presents an innovative exploration of the role and internal mechanisms of social trust in digital finance, utilizing using provincial panel data from 27 provinces in China spanning the period from 2012 to 2021. By focusing on trust as a core element, the study enriches the research framework on digital finance development, revealing that beyond traditional factors such as technology and the economy, social and psychological factors also affect digital finance growth. These findings provide new perspectives on understanding digital finance development. The study elucidates the complex substitution and interdependence between formal and informal institutions, offering valuable insights for optimizing institutional frameworks to promote digital finance. It also uncovers significant regional heterogeneity in the influence of social trust on digital finance, and social trust primarily enhances the depth and digitization of digital finance, while its effect on the breadth of digital finance is statistically insignificant. These insights serve as a valuable reference for policymakers aiming to ensure the sustainable expansion of the digital finance sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Fan Zeng & Benyong Hu, 2025. "The Impact of Social Trust on the Development of Digital Finance," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-19, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijfss:v:13:y:2025:i:4:p:232-:d:1810068
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7072/13/4/232/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7072/13/4/232/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bu, Fanhao, 2025. "The effect of digital government construction on the enhancement of public governance capacity: An analysis based on financial information transparency," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    2. Zeng, Zhuo & Tang, Jian, 2025. "How does the level of digital governance moderate the impact of blockchain technology on green credit issuance?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(PA).
    3. Qi, Quansong, 2025. "Can blockchain technology promote digital governance? An investigation of fintech’s mediating role and heterogeneity," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(PA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijfss:v:13:y:2025:i:4:p:232-:d:1810068. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.