ARCHIVES

Rapid increase in Financial Technology (Fintech) has drastically changed global financial landscape that is now acting as a powerful enabler for allowing access to financial products and services and expanding financial inclusion for unbanked and marginalized population (Afjal, 2023). This rapid acceleration of digital technologies are introducing a very critical paradox, as such unregulated expansion of digital finance increases systemic risks and vulnerabilities that incluse rise in the Non-Performing Loans (NPL), digital bank runs and cyber and financial risks (Jain et al., 2023). Addressing this seperated literature that is treating these perspectives in isolation, this conceptual paper is theoretically developing an integrated framework that is exploring the complex relationship between inclusion-stability nexus (Cihak et al., 2012). Exploring the innovation-growth and innovation-fragility perspectives, this study is placing fintech as a dual force system (Fung et al., 2020). This proposed framework positioning systemic risk as a mediating variable where financial inclusion can decrease the risk via diversification of deposits or can also increase it via unregulated credit expansion and increase in NPLs (Anton & Nucu, 2024). Moreover, this paper also explores the transition of financial inclusion to financial stability or instability is dictated via the moderating variables such as adaptive regulatory frameworks, market discipline, institutional quality, and digital financial literacy (Hosen et al., 2025; Khémiri et al., 2024). This work concludes that to achieve a balance between inclusion-stability that is guided via fintech, requires regulators to adopt adaptive regulations, for fostering economic growth without the sacrifice of deteriorating of the financial system (Fung et al., 2020).