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The review examines the existing literature on blockchain-based small and medium enterprise (SME) finance and highlights its trend, themes, opportunities and challenges. Based on these factors, the authors create a framework for the existing literature on blockchain-based SME financing and lay down future research paths.

The review follows a systematic approach. It includes 53 articles encompassing multiple dimensions of blockchain-based SME finance, including peer-to-peer lending platforms, supply chain finance (SCF), decentralized lending protocols and tokenization of assets. The review critically evaluates these approaches' theoretical underpinnings, empirical evidence and practical implementations.

The review demonstrates that blockchain-based SME finance holds significant promise in addressing the credit gap by leveraging blockchain technology's decentralized and transparent nature. Benefits identified include reduced information asymmetry, improved access to financing, enhanced credit assessment processes and increased financial inclusion. However, the literature acknowledges several challenges and limitations, such as regulatory uncertainties, scalability issues, operational complexities and potential security risks.

The article contributes to the growing knowledge of blockchain-based SME finance by synthesizing and evaluating the existing literature. It also provides a framework for the existing literature in the area and future research paths. The study offers insights for researchers, policymakers and practitioners seeking to understand the potential of blockchain technology in filling the SME credit gap and fostering economic development through improved access to finance for SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how access to financing for incremental as well as radical innovation activities is affected by firm-specific structural and behavioral characteristics.

Deploying a two-stage Heckman probit model on survey data spanning the period 2000–2013 and covering 1,169 firms, this paper analyzes the effect of a firm’s engagement in incremental and radical innovation on its likelihood to get constrained in their access to external finance, and how this effect is moderated by the firm’s age and size.

In line with earlier research, it is confirmed that the type of innovation matters for the access to external finance, but in a more nuanced way than generally portrayed. While incremental innovation activities have little negative effect on the access to external finance, radical innovation activities tend to be penalized by capital markets. This effect appears to be particularly strong for small firms.

This paper provides nuanced insights into the interplay between types of firm-level innovation activities, structural characteristic and access to external finance.

The primary objective of this paper is to identify and compare the collateral imposition practices among Islamic banks in Indonesia to serve micro, small and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) clients and explore the experiences and perceptions of MSME entrepreneurs pertaining to collateralisation in MSME financing.

This study was carried out by implementing a case study research strategy. The data was gathered primarily through the interview by utilising purposive uncontrolled quota sampling. The interview was conducted using semi-structured interview questions by targeting the two sides of Islamic financial inclusion: the Islamic banking industry (supply-side) and the MSME segment (demand-side).

This paper implies that the collateral provision is indeed an obligatory requirement for MSME to access regular financing in an Islamic bank, preferably the immovable type that consists of land and property. Subsequently, although the Islamic banks offer non-collateralised financing, their disbursement is still relatively scant and limited. Furthermore, despite the collateral issues, most MSME entrepreneurs positively perceive the bank’s collateralisation practice, indicating their awareness and understanding of the collateral purpose and function to access the financing facility.

This paper merely observed six Islamic bank institutions and 22 MSME units in urban and rural areas in Indonesia using a case study approach. Therefore, the empirical findings and case discussions were limited to those around the corresponding Islamic banks and MSME participants.

By referring to the several disclosed issues associated with the collateral imposition practices, this paper presents several recommendations that might be considered by the policymakers and the Islamic banking industry to enhance the realisation of MSME Islamic financial inclusion from the collateral implementation aspect, and thereby, facilitating more inclusive growth for the MSME industry.

This paper is unique since the paper attempts to analyse and compare the collateral imposition practices and its perception from the two distinct sides of Islamic financial inclusion that were represented by Islamic banks and MSMEs in Indonesia by including different types of Islamic banks and different segments of MSME in their diverse business sector within the urban and rural locations.

This paper investigates the effect of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on small- and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) access to credit. Starting with the idea that SMEs' strategy-making process, structures and behaviour can favour credit access, the authors also explore the moderating role of bank lending technologies in shaping this relationship.

This study relies on a unique survey of Austrian and Italian SMEs which contains detailed information on access to credit, EO dimensions, relationship lending and firm-level characteristics. The authors perform stepwise logistic regressions to assess whether EO interacts with SME's access to finance, and how relationship lending enhances this relationship.

Proactiveness, autonomy and competitive aggressiveness are important constructs for improving access to bank financing. Those dimensions became more important when a relationship bank is involved, suggesting a role for relationship lending in overcoming SMEs' opaqueness. In addition, relationship lending is crucial for innovative SMEs in overcoming credit denial rates.

The small sample did not allow to analyse the effect of EO on discouraged borrowers. Furthermore, alternative measures of relationship lending (such as geographical proximity or the length of the relationship) and the share of credit granted by the relationship bank would have been interesting to further validate our results.

This study shows that EO dimensions and the type of lending technology are relevant for the financial success of SMEs. More precisely, the authors show that diversity within the banking system helps innovative, autonomous, proactive and competitive SMEs. These important pieces of soft information are injected into the final lending decision when a relationship bank is involved. The evidence suggests the need for SMEs to interact with local banks to fully exploit their EO posture.

To the authors' knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to analyse whether relationship lending can affect the EO–credit access relation.

Access to financing has long been identified as a stumbling block for the economic endeavors of immigrant entrepreneurs (IEs) in host countries. Yet, little is known about the internal enablers for the IEs success to overcome their financing barriers in host countries. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to introduce the theoretical concept of the financial ambidexterity of IEs as a potential behavioral ability some IEs develop over time to access financing in both host and coethnic contexts.

The paper uses sociopsychological lenses to introduce and discuss the term “financial ambidexterity of IEs” by synthesizing empirical evidence drawn from the different literature on immigrant entrepreneurship, biculturalism, financial literacy and cultural intelligence. This discussion is carefully embedded within the framework of the immigrant entrepreneurship literature.

The study proposes and discusses the role of bicultural identity integration, cultural intelligence and financial literacy in enabling the “financial ambidexterity of IEs.” It further defines the “financial ambidexterity of IEs” as their ability to explore and exploit financing opportunities, either simultaneously across the contexts within which they are embedded, e.g. coethnic and mainstream, or alternately in one context when barriers occur in the other.

The paper mainly contributes to the literature on immigrant entrepreneurship by suggesting an explanation for how IEs overcome financing barriers in their host countries, and why some IEs are more successful in that than other peers. Moreover, the paper attempts to advance the understanding of immigrants' entrepreneurial endeavors using a sociopsychological lens that considers cultural, cognitive and knowledge-related factors.

This paper aims to define a methodology to assess the impact of introducing Islamic finance on financial inclusion.

The paper is based on a literature review to understand the link between Islamic finance and financial inclusion. The second part of the paper presents a conceptual framework to assess the impact of introducing Islamic finance on financial inclusion in a defined context based on the profiling of people interested in Islamic finance.

The paper brings an insight on the impact of introducing Islamic finance. Indeed, it could cause a financial migration to Islamic banks that can take many forms and depends on many factors that call for deep analysis.

The paper would help financial authorities and financial institutions to measure the impact of introducing Islamic finance on their businesses and the stability of the whole system.

Islamic finance can not only enhance financial inclusion but also create financial migration. The two implications can vary from one context to another.

Islamic finance can contribute in the effort of including “self-excluded” people with religious concerns as well as people without access to financial services.

This paper promotes the idea that Islamic finance is not exclusively a way to enhance financial inclusion.

This study aims to investigate whether social capital mediates the impact of financial capital on business performance in Cameroon.

The study uses quantitative data collected from 370 small businesses in Yaoundé and Douala in Cameroon. All businesses in the sample are formally registered and are in the services sector. A structural equation modelling (SEM) approach is used for the analysis.

Structural and relational capital constraints are significant mediators of formal and informal finance. The magnitude effects of relational capital are the largest, underlining information's importance in resolving small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs') financial constraints. In addition, the effect of informal finance constraints on business performance is larger in magnitude, confirming the substantial impact of informal finance on SME operations.

The paper confirms that relational and structural social capital are vital in business. However, the study did not investigate the disaggregated effects of these dimensions of social capital. Furthermore, how SMEs transition between formal and informal finance could provide further understanding of the role of social capital. A disaggregated and panel data set would help to provide additional insights.

Social capital emerges as a pivotal factor in enhancing SME access to finance. The results, therefore, confirm the relevance of a holistic approach to easing financial capital constraints for SMEs and enabling small businesses to connect more to various stakeholders to amplify business performance. In addition, the findings identified some intervention points for the governments in Cameroon as it seeks to use SMEs as its pivot for development and to catapult itself to emerging economy status in its Cameroon 2035 vision.

The value of the study lies in assessing the mediating effect of cognitive, relational and structural social capital constraints on business performance and comparing the effect of formal and informal financial constraints on business performance.

Lack of access to finance is a major constraint to the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurship in developing countries. The recent proliferation of mobile phone services, access to the internet and emerging technologies has led to a surge in the use of FinTech in Africa and is transforming the financial sector. This paper aims to examine whether FinTech developments heterogeneously contribute to the growth of digital finance for SMEs and entrepreneurship in 47 African countries from 2013 to 2020.

The paper uses a novel method of moments quantile regression, which deals with heterogeneity and endogeneity in diverse conditions for asymmetric and nonlinear models.

The empirical results reveal that the rise of FinTech companies offering services in Africa heterogeneously increases digital finance for SMEs and entrepreneurship in their different stages of growth. FinTech developments have a strong and positive impact in countries with higher levels of digital finance than those with lower levels. FinTech developments and digital finance positively and significantly influence entrepreneurship in Africa, particularly in the nascent and transitional development stages of entrepreneurship. Institutional quality has a considerable positive moderating effect when used as a control rather than an interaction variable.

The results suggest the need to promote FinTech developments in Africa: to provide a wide range of alternative digital finance schemes to SMEs and to promote entrepreneurship, especially in countries where entrepreneurship is in the nascent and transitional development stages. The results also underscore the need to promote FinTech development through supportive regulations and institutional quality to reduce risks related to FinTech and digital financing schemes.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first attempts to account for the often overlooked heterogeneity effects and show that the influence of FinTech developments is not homogenous across the varying development stages of digital finance and entrepreneurship.

This study examines why low-wealth women entrepreneurs forgo mobile enabled money services and government supported micro finance for informal, community-based revolving loans in rural Nigeria.

Thematic analysis of 25 interviews with women in rural, south-west Nigeria. Entrepreneurial ecosystem theory, in the gendered context of micro finance and community-based lending, is employed.

This study explains the paradox of forgoing seemingly accessible mobile enabled credit, and formal credit schemes (e.g. micro-finance programs) for informal, one-on-one borrowing. Convenience and trust-based relationships with respected community members ease the burden of time scarcity and vulnerability associated with formal capital. Flexible terms, autonomy, self-reliance and knowing who one is dealing with make Esusu a preferred source of finance. Findings are discussed in the context of gendered entrepreneurial ecosystems in which participants conduct business.

The sample is not representative of women entrepreneurs in rural Nigeria. Survivorship bias is acknowledged. Further research is needed on the psychological risks of informal capital and the benefits of community-based lending.

Measures to scale mobile enabled credit, without commensurate interventions to address time management and other structural issues that confront women traders, limit their utility and impacts. Power differentials between women traders and lenders must also be considered in the design of lending products. Training of women traders and formal lenders should incorporate curricula about gender gaps in capital markets and systematic gender challenges to support entrepreneurs who seek to grow beyond subsistence enterprises.

This study documents decision criteria that motivate informal rural women traders to employ community-based revolving credit or Esusu. Findings inform measures to increase women entrepreneurs' access to capital in a rural sub-Saharan Africa contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a model that will demonstrate how the integration of Salam (exclusive agricultural commodity trade) with Takaful (micro-Takaful – a subdivision of Islamic insurance) and value chain can address major challenges facing the agricultural sector in Kano State, Nigeria.

The study conducted a thorough and critical analysis of relevant literature and existing models of financing agriculture in Nigeria to come up with the proposed model.

The findings indicate that measures undertaken to address the major challenges fail. In view of this, this study proposed Bay-Salam with Takaful and value chain model to solve a number of challenges such as poor access to financing, poor marketing and pricing, delay, collateral requirement and risk issues in order to avail farmers with easy access to finance and provide effective security to financial institutions.

The paper is limited to using secondary data. Therefore, empirical investigation can be carried out to strengthen the validation of the model.

The study outcome seeks to improve the productivity of the farmers through enhancing their access to finance. This will increase their level of production and provide more employment opportunities. In addition, it will boost financial inclusion, income generation, poverty alleviation, standard of living, food security and overall economic growth and development.

The novelty of this study lies in the integration of classical Bay-Salam with Takaful and value chain and create a unique model structure which the researchers do not come across in any research that presented it in Nigeria.