关键词: 数字金融, 新型农村金融机构, 村镇银行, 银行脆弱性

Abstract: At the end of 2006, China's rural financial system began to undergo incremental reforms, encouraging the establishment of new rural financial institutions to alleviate financing constraints in rural areas. Among them, village banks play an irreplaceable role in enriching the financial institution system and helping to provide financial services to disadvantaged groups in rural areas, but some village banks have gradually transformed into high-risk institutions with high fragility levels during their development. Therefore, the stability of the development of new rural financial institutions still needs to be improved, and how to ensure their operational safety is one of the issues to which more attention should be given. Digital finance, a product of the combination of digital technology and traditional finance, has created opportunities to reduce the fragility of new rural financial institutions. The inclusive “genes” extend the boundaries of digital finance services and enhance the accessibility of financial services in the fields of agriculture and rural areas. Against the background of “digitization” gradually becoming the direction of future economic development, what kind of impact does the development of digital financial have on the fragility of new rural financial institutions? Does this impact present heterogeneity due to the different characteristics of financial institutions? Answers to these questions are conducive to improving the rural financial service system, promoting the formation of a long-term service mechanism that helps the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas by rural financial institutions.
Taking village bank as an example, this paper constructs a theoretical model of the relationship between digital finance and new rural financial institutions from a fragility perspective. It holds that digital finance plays a crowding-out effect and a dividend effect in the rural financial market. The influence of the digital financial development on the fragility of new rural financial institutions depends on the relative strength of the crowding-out effect and the dividend effect. Then, data of 46 new rural financial institutions from 2016 to 2020 are selected to measure the fragility by using global principal component analysis and an empirical test is conducted by using a two-way fixed effects model. The results are as follows: The development of digital finance is beneficial to reducing the fragility of new rural financial institutions; There is heterogeneity in the inhibitory effect of the digital financial development on the fragility of new rural financial institutions, with a greater impact on new rural financial institutions located in underdeveloped counties or with small asset size; Further analysis of the role of internal corporate governance capabilities and external financial regulatory efforts shows that the improvement of corporate governance capabilities and the strengthening of financial regulatory efforts make it easier for digital finance to reduce the fragility of new rural financial institutions.
Based on the above conclusions, the following policy implications are obtained: (1)Building a rural financial system that organically couples digital finance and traditional finance is the fundamental path to alleviate the problem of “uneven” and “insufficient” regional development. It is necessary to continue to promote the strengthening of the overall planning and the top-level design of digital finance, accelerate the integration of digital technology and financial services, and promote the construction of information technology in county areas. Policies and regulations should be adopted to encourage and guide digital finance to the countryside, prompting rural financial institutions to make reasonable use of digital dividends to improve service efficiency and quality. (2)Rural financial institutions should strengthen learning and communication, keep abreast with advanced service methods and management modes. They should adjust and optimize the shareholding structure, improve the internal governance mechanism, clarify the boundary of authority and responsibility of the “three councils and one layer”, and improve the staff training system. (3)Improve the relevant financial regulatory system, enhance the compliance of digital finance and traditional financial operations, improve the transparency and openness of the rural financial market, and realize the long-term and stable development of the rural financial system.

Key words: Digital Finance, New Rural Financial Institutions, Village Bank, Banking Fragility