Research on Financial Services Innovations: A Quantitative Review and Future Research Directions

Purpose: This study presents a systematic overview of the current state of research on innovations in financial services and identifies the areas that have received less attention which offer opportunities for future research.Design/methodology/approach: An extensive search identified 121 research papers that have studied innovations in financial services from January 1990 to March 2015. A thorough content analysis objectively organized and coded the studies based on various aspects including publication year, focus of study, methodology, unit of analysis, sample, data analysis method, and geographical region. The study adopts a quantitative approach by focusing on the number of articles published as the variable of interest, and thus identifies the areas that have received less attention in a quantitative way.Findings: The findings synthesize the research papers with regards to each of the aforementioned aspects and offer researchers directions for future research. While research has been more or less diverse, the results demonstrate that studies on the consumer side have primarily examined adoption of Internet or mobile banking, suggesting that future research should focus on other aspects. Future research can focus on the spatial and temporal data available from mobile banking, how financial innovations have led or can lead to leapfrogging advances in developing countries, and how they can contribute to consumer well-being. On the firm side, more research is needed to explore the performance of financial institutions and innovations, financial services design and development, and firms’ strategies regarding financial innovations.Research limitations/implications: The sample size of 121 articles is an adequate sample size for the purpose of the study and it is in line with similar studies on innovations in other areas. However, future research can expand the study to review the academic journals that were not included. It can also review and synthesize the qualitative aspects of studies and a meta-analysis of the identified relationships.Originality/value: The study is the first to present a holistic overview of the current state of research on innovations in financial services. The findings offer clear directions to researchers for future research and hence can be used to promote research in these areas.