Research On The Influence Of Fintech Development On The Leverage Ratio Of Listed Enterprises

In recent years,with the country’s economic growth slowing down,corporate debt and leverage ratios have climbed rapidly.In particular,the high leverage of nonfinancial enterprises has become an important factor restricting the development of enterprises and the health of our economy.At present,the complex environment of the enterprises in our country,resources mismatch,financing difficulties,high financing and other problems make the enterprises can not get financial services according to the actual situation.The three-year-long COVID-19 epidemic has brought a huge impact on the development of enterprises,which further restricts the high-quality development of the real economy.With the new wave of information technology revolution,fintech has become the focus of attention in the financial field.The development of fintech has broken through the constraints of geographical and subject nature on the availability of financial services and constantly expanded the scope of financial services.This will help to improve the inclusiveness of financial service subjects and the convenience of access to financial resources,especially for vulnerable groups such as small and medium-sized enterprises,private enterprises and high-tech enterprises.The development of fintech enables them to get more matching and comprehensive financial services.On the one hand,the development of fintech can break through the barriers of traditional financial industry,alleviate resource mismatch,reduce information asymmetry,improve resource allocation efficiency and information transparency,and thus improve the ecological environment of the entire financial industry.On the other hand,fintech development with information technology as the core can accelerate the digital transformation and upgrading of the traditional financial sector,improve the stability of corporate financial risk and reduce corporate financing costs,so as to reduce the demand for external financing and stabilize the operation and management of enterprises.Therefore,it is of great theoretical value and practical significance to study the effect of fintech development on corporate leverage ratio and analyze its influence mechanism in depth.On the basis of in-depth research on fintech development,corporate leverage ratio and the influence of the former on the latter,this paper preliminarily explores the influence mechanism of fintech development on corporate leverage ratio,the influence mechanism of fintech development on corporate leverage ratio and the influence heterogeneity through theoretical analysis,and puts forward three corresponding research hypotheses respectively.In terms of empirical research,the number of regional fintech companies represents the development of fintech as the core explanatory variable,and panel data of 1,365 A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2011 to 2021 are selected as research samples to test the above three research hypotheses in turn.First of all,Tobit model is used as the benchmark regression model to explore the influence of fintech development on the leverage ratio of listed enterprises,and the endogeneity test and robustness test are conducted on the empirical results to ensure the robustness and credibility of the results.Secondly,the mechanism of the influence of fintech development on the leverage ratio of listed enterprises is tested.Finally,the influence of fintech development on the heterogeneity of leverage ratio of listed companies with different sizes,different ownership properties and different high-tech levels is studied.The conclusions of this study are as follows: First,the development of fintech can reduce the leverage ratio of enterprises,including the total leverage ratio,short-term leverage ratio and long-term leverage ratio.Meanwhile,the reduction effect of shortterm leverage ratio is greater than that of long-term leverage ratio.Second,the development of fintech can reduce the leverage ratio of enterprises by improving their financial risk stability and reducing their financial costs.Third,compared with small and medium-sized enterprises,non-state-owned enterprises and high-tech enterprises,fintech development has a stronger deleveraging effect on large-scale enterprises,stateowned enterprises and non-high-tech enterprises.According to the research conclusions of this paper,this paper puts forward several policy suggestions to support macroeconomic "steady growth" and micro enterprise "deleveraging" : First,the government should provide necessary policy support and financial support for the development of fintech.Combining with artificial intelligence,big data,cloud computing and other cutting-edge technologies,the scope and availability of fintech services should be continuously improved,and a favorable external environment should be created to promote the sustainable development of fintech.The government should actively guide fintech to serve entities,optimize capital structure and effectively prevent potential debt risks by promoting their digital transformation.Second,the government should build the enterprise financial information service platform,realize the sharing of financial resources among enterprises,alleviate the information asymmetry,and reduce the mismatch of resources in the market.Enterprises should also make effective use of advanced technologies brought by the development of fintech to boost their own production and operation,constantly expand financing channels,and reduce financial risks and costs.Third,we should pay attention to the heterogeneity of the effects of fintech development on leverage ratios of different enterprises,focus on guiding fintech development to provide financial resources and services to small and medium-sized enterprises,non-stateowned enterprises,high-tech enterprises and other financial vulnerable groups,constantly enhance the ability of fintech to serve such vulnerable groups,and promote financial supply-side structural reform.Fourth,the financial regulatory authorities should continue to strengthen the guidance and supervision of the fintech sector,set dynamic regulatory red lines according to the development situation,innovate the regulatory means of fintech,effectively strengthen the risk isolation of the development of fintech by adopting regulatory sandboxes,building risk warning platforms and other methods,so as to improve the regulatory capacity in this field.To achieve long-term development of fintech and the real economy.