INCLUSIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP THROUGH FINTECH: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF EVIDENCE CENTERED ON WOMEN AND YOUTH

This systematic review introduces the growing body of literature on FinTech-enabled inclusive entrepreneurship, with a special focus on women and youth. The study synthesizes fifteen conceptually sound and methodologically sound peer-reviewed articles on the research topic of entrepreneurship, financial inclusion, and digital innovation published in the last decade between 2008 and 2025 in line with a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020-compliant systematic review protocol. The review critically questions the current techno-optimistic claim that access to digital finance would automatically translate into entrepreneurial empowerment and productivity. Results have shown that FinTech increases the financial opportunity structure by lowering the transaction cost, offering alternative credit scoring, and accessing crowdfunding and digital payments. Findings of the study show that there are positive relationships between digital financial inclusion and youth labor-force participation, women-performing SME, and entrepreneurial intention. However, the effects of such outcomes are very contingent: digital capability, financial literacy, entrepreneurial agility, and resource-mobilization capacity mediate the nexus between access and empowerment. The quality of institutions, regulation, unequal infrastructure between cities and rural areas, and socio-cultural standards also moderate inclusion. The inclusivity narrative is complicated by emergent risks, such as algorithmic bias, over-indebtedness, and regulatory fragmentation. The review reports three major gaps in the literature, including the confusion of access with empowerment, disciplinary fragmentation between FinTech and entrepreneurship studies, and the lack of intersectional and longitudinal studies. An integrative conceptual framework is suggested, according to which FinTech is viewed as a conditional socio-technical infrastructure instead of a determinist equalizer. In general, the results indicate that FinTech can facilitate inclusive entrepreneurship, but conditionally, improved digital systems, and responsible innovation when placed in a favorable institutional environment..