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Purpose: The purpose of this chapter is to offer a discussion on the role played by Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in enhancing financial inclusion. The central interest of the study is to place CBDC on the financial inclusion landscape and provide insights on potential opportunities and barriers in making CBDC a strong building block of financial inclusion, as well as the digital financial system.

Design/methodology/approach: This chapter is a conceptual work that builds on relevant literature. This study identifies and suggests potential aspects that can help in the adoption of CBDC as a tool for financial inclusion.

Findings: This chapter analyses opportunities, barriers, and concerns for CBDC in the context of financial inclusion and discusses how critical functions of blockchain technology can lead to the acceptance and adoption of CBDC. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated how CBDC can pave the way for financial inclusion and benefit the existing financial system taking more people from financial exclusion towards financial inclusion.

Originality/value: This is evident that CBDCs and financial inclusion need to be intertwined to support upcoming technological transformations happening in the digital financial ecosystem. Therefore, CBDCs must be viewed from varying lenses to understand the relevance of including CBDCs in the financial system can be expanded. Further, repercussions from the given framework are suggested.

Purpose: This chapter aims to unveil the challenges of adopting and using banking chatbots in India and identify the challenges of Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT) for future banking.

Need for the study: Unveiling the challenges of chatbots and ChatGPT in the banking industry in India is crucial to understand the limitations and areas of improvement to enhance customer experience, ensure data security, and maintain regulatory compliance.

Methodology: The researchers conducted a narrative review systematically summarising and analysing existing literature on chatbots and ChatGPT, providing a comprehensive overview of the challenges faced in the industry.

Findings: The authors identify perceived risk, platform quality, connectivity and infrastructure, data privacy and security, user education and acceptance, existing legacy systems, and regulatory guidelines as the challenges of adopting chatbots. Additionally, the findings reveal that the challenges posed by ChatGPT in future banking include the potential reduction of traditional banking jobs, linguistic diversity, data privacy and security, ethical considerations and bias mitigation, explainability and accountability, integration with existing banking systems, and user trust and acceptance. However, implementing these new technologies also presents opportunities for individuals with unique human skills, such as critical thinking, empathy, and creativity, which are difficult to replace with technology.

Practical implications: By minimising the challenges of ChatGPT and chatbots, the banking industry could achieve improved customer service, cost efficiency, automation of routine tasks, and 24/7 availability, leading to enhanced customer satisfaction and operational efficiency in the banking industry. Additionally, these artificial intelligence (AI) tools enable data-driven insights, personalised experiences, scalability, and efficient handling of large customer volumes, contributing to better decision-making and enhanced customer engagement.

This study empirically examines the impact of climate change and agricultural research and development (R&D) as well as their interaction on agricultural productivity in 12 selected Asian and Pacific countries over the period of 1990–2018.

Various estimation methods for panel data, including Fixed Effects (FE), the Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS) and two-step System Generalized Method of Moments (SGMM) were used.

Results show that both proxies of climate change – temperature and precipitation – have negative impacts on agricultural productivity. Notably, agricultural R&D investments not only increase agricultural productivity but also mitigate the detrimental impact of climate change proxied by temperature on agricultural productivity. Interestingly, climate change proxied by precipitation initially reduces agricultural productivity until a threshold of agricultural R&D beyond which precipitation increases agricultural productivity.

The findings imply useful policies to boost agricultural productivity by using R&D in the context of rising climate change in the vulnerable continent.

This study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, this study examines how climate change affects agricultural productivity in Asian and Pacific countries – those are most vulnerable to climate change. Second, this study assesses the role of R&D in improving agricultural productivity as well as its moderating effect in reducing the harmful impact of climate change on agricultural productivity.

The purpose of this article is to make a contribution to the existing knowledge by using the unique cross-jurisdiction data drawn from the FCA’s REP-CRIM submissions to explore dynamics behind firms’ perceptions on financial crime. Capturing firm’s sentiment is notoriously challenging, and any relevant regulatory data is usually not available in the public domain. A recent exception is the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) financial crime data return (REP-CRIM) submissions which include the cross-country regulatory data on the UK financial institutions’ perceptions of jurisdiction risk. Despite a broad literature with respect to financial crime, there exists an important gap in the existing knowledge with respect to factors that are associated with the perceptions of firms with respect to jurisdiction risk, which this article aims to close.

Using cross-country regulatory data on the UK financial institutions’ perceptions of jurisdiction risk, this study empirically determines that perceptions of jurisdiction risk is significantly and positively associated with anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) framework, as well as with tax burden on business and institutional and legal risk in the case of 165 jurisdictions.

The findings lend support to the proposition that unsystematic efforts and too much publicity may ascertain the high-risk image of a jurisdiction, deterring cross-border business. Policy implications that emerge from the study also add to the case for strengthening institutional and legal frameworks, as well as relieving the tax burden on doing business.

Findings of the present study should be interpreted with caution, as the dependent variable used in the present study reflects UK firms’ perceptions of jurisdiction risk, which may depend on various factors such as different risk appetites and the countries in which firms carry out business, and not necessarily the actual level of risks based on financial crime statistics. For example, a jurisdiction which may indeed be considered high risk, would not necessarily be ranking high on the FCA’s list of UK firms’ jurisdiction risk perceptions due to few firms operating in that particular country. As a result, the list could differ from the Financial Action Task Force’s black and grey lists. Findings based on the regulatory data on the UK financial institutions’ perceptions of jurisdiction risk should be considered preliminary in nature, given that they are based on a single year cross sectional data. As global and country-level AML/CFT efforts continue to intensify and as more regulatory data becomes publicly available, it would be imperative to bring further empirical evidence to bear on the question of whether financial crime perceptions are likely to be more pronounced for jurisdictions where AML/CFT efforts are more intensified. Likewise, from a policy standpoint, it would be equally important to explore further the role that institutional and legal risk, as well as tax burden on businesses, play in shaping firms’ perceptions of jurisdiction risk.

Findings lend support to the proposition that unsystematic efforts and too much publicity may ascertain the high-risk image of a jurisdiction, deterring cross-border business. Therefore, rather than waiting for more data to be made available by other financial regulators, which could lead to a more conclusive evidence in the future, on balance, the findings of this study add to the case for carefully designing and systematically implementing AML/CFT measures in a less publicized manner. Findings lend support to the theoretical postulation that disorderly efforts and undue publicity regarding AML/CFT efforts serve to ascertain the high-risk image of a jurisdiction, which could deter cross-border business and could be detrimental to how firms undertake due diligence. They also suggest that disorderly implementation of AML/CFT measures may hinder access to formal financial service and jeopardize authorities’ ability to trace the movement of funds, which may also add to negative perceptions of jurisdiction risk.

Findings are in line with the theoretical expectations that perceptions of jurisdiction risk would be expected to be higher in countries with inadequate disclosure rules, lax regulation and opacity jurisdiction. Likewise, results are aligned with the expectations that tax burden on business would be expected to be in a positive relationship with jurisdiction risk, as it would increase the likelihood of tax evasion, which incentivizes financial crime. Therefore, policy implications that emerge from the study also add to the case for strengthening institutional and legal frameworks and relieving the tax burden on doing business as part of efforts to improve the international image of jurisdictions with respect to financial crime risks.

Using the cross-country regulatory data on the UK financial institutions’ perceptions of jurisdiction risk, this study has empirically determined that perceptions of jurisdiction risk is significantly and positively associated with AML/CFT framework, as well as with tax burden on business and institutional and legal risk. These findings have implications from a policy standpoint.

This study investigates the correlation between economic development and scientific knowledge production indicators in the BRICS countries from 2000 to 2020, highlighting the importance of human resources, natural resources, and innovation. Addressing a gap in the existing literature, this study aims to contribute significantly to understanding this relationship.

Employing a descriptive statistical approach, this study utilizes GDP and per capita income as economic indicators and scientific data from WoS and SCOPUS databases, focusing on scientific document production and citations per document.

The analysis reveals a strong correlation between economic development and scientific performance within the BRICS nations during the specified period. It emphasizes the interdependence of economic progress and scientific prowess, underscoring that they cannot be considered independently.

However, limitations exist, notably the reliance on specific databases that might not cover the entire scientific output and the inability to capture all factors influencing economic and scientific development.

Understanding this interdependence has crucial originality. Policymakers and stakeholders in BRICS countries can leverage these insights to prioritize investments in human capital development and scientific research. This approach can foster sustainable economic growth by reducing reliance on natural resources.

Consumers and businesses are becoming increasingly conscious of sustainable business practices and are often willing to pay a premium for responsibly sourced and manufactured products. Many countries and organizations have implemented regulations and standards for sustainability and companies face penalties or are barred from exporting for not meeting the requirements. Rooted in the resource-based view theory, this study aims to test a moderated mediation model to improve the sustainability performance of exporting firms.

Textile firms generating more than 25% of export revenues were targeted for this research. The data collected from 245 middle management-level employees were tested for reliability and validity. The structural equation modelling in AMOS 26 was used to test hypotheses.

Organizational readiness for green innovation (ORGI) has a direct positive effect on sustainability performance. The mediation analysis implies that ORGI translates into sustainability performance through improvement in green innovation performance. The moderating effect of knowledge integration highlights the importance of being prepared internally and actively seeking and incorporating external knowledge to improve green innovation performance.

The findings offer a solid foundation for informed decision-making, policy development and strategies to improve sustainability performance while aligning with the global nature of the textile industry and its inherent challenges. The proposed model and practical implications guide policymakers and managers of exporting firms to foster a culture of green innovation to leverage the effect of their readiness for green innovation on sustainability performance.

This study aims to analyse the intellectual property rights (INPR), foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows and technological exports of 32 developing and developed countries for the period of 2006–2020.

Diagnostic tests were used to confirm the panel least squares, fixed effect, random effect, feasible general least squares, dynamic ordinary least squares and fully modified ordinary least squares estimator results as well as to increase the robustness.

According to the findings for the developing countries, trademark, patent and industrial design applications, each had a significant positive long-run effect on FDI inflows. In addition, there was a significant positive long-run relationship between patent applications and medium- and high-technology exports. Meanwhile, trademark and industrial design applications had a significant negative long-term effect on medium- and high-technology exports. In developed countries, patent and industrial design applications each have a significant negative long-term on medium- and high-technology exports. Furthermore, patent and trademark applications each had a significant negative long-run effect on FDI inflows.

This study contributes significantly to the focus that host countries evaluate the technology gaps between domestic and foreign investors at different industry levels to select the best INPR rules and innovation process by increasing international cooperation. Furthermore, the host countries should follow the structure–conduct–performance paradigm based on analysis of the market structure, strategic firms and industrial dynamics systems.

The potential growth in cryptocurrencies has raised serious ethical and religious issues leading to a new investment rethinking. This paper aims to identify the influence of religiosity on cryptocurrency acceptance through an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) model.

In the first phase, this research develops a conceptual model that extends the theory of the TAM by integrating the religiosity component. In the second phase, the proposed model is tested using search volume queries in daily frequencies from 01/01/2018 to 31/12/2022 and structural equation modeling (SEM).

The empirical results demonstrate a significant positive effect of religiosity on the intention to use cryptocurrency, the users' perceived usefulness (PU) and ease of use (PEOU). Besides, the authors note that PEOU positively influences the intention. Furthermore, religiosity indirectly affects the intention through the PEOU and positively impacts the intention through the PU. In the same way, PEOU has a considerable indirect effect on the intention through PU.

This study has practical and theoretical contributions by providing insights into the cryptocurrency acceptance factors. In other words, it contributes to the literature by extending TAM models. Practically, it helps managers determine factors affecting the intention to use cryptocurrencies. Therefore, they can adjust their industry according to the suitable characteristics for creating successful projects.

Identifying the effect of religiosity on cryptocurrency users' choices and decisions has a social added value as it provides an understanding of the evolution of psychological variants.

The findings emphasize the importance of integrating big data to analyze users' attitudes. Besides, most studies on cryptocurrency acceptance are investigated based on one kind of religion, such as Christianity or Islam. Nevertheless, this paper integrates the effect of five types of faith on the users' intentions.