Bank Profitability on Emerging Markets for Business Sustainability: A Systematic Literature Review

This study aims to provide a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis of bank profitability with a particular focus on emerging markets, which remain underexplored in global academic discussions. Using a systematic literature review approach through keyword searches for “bank profitability” in the Scopus database, this study analyzed 6,097 publications from 1989 to 2025 using VOSviewer software to identify research trends, major determinants, and thematic gaps. The results reveal a significant increase in the number of publications over time, but most studies remain concentrated on developed markets such as the United States and Europe, while research on developing countries is still limited. The findings highlight the growing role of technology, especially digital banking, as a key driver of bank profitability, along with the importance of macroeconomic factors and regulatory frameworks. The analysis presented is restricted to Scopus data, and we recommend future work should consider other databases such as Web of Science and a more comprehensive set of policy and macroeconomic variables to allow greater generalizability. These result implications can be useful for bank managers to help them devise effective strategies that enable the use of technological advancements and diversification of services to improve profit. On the social side, a financially sound banking industry can support key areas like education and infrastructure, and encourage more inclusive and sustainable banking systems. The originality of this research lies in the use of the most recent data and bibliometric analysis to provide a comprehensive perspective on the determinants of bank profitability in emerging markets.