This research aims to determine the strategy of the Jakarta Provincial Government in increasing the resilience and growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) within a collaborative governance framework post-COVID-19. This study explores the effectiveness of SMEs and facilities in accessing financing and fostering collaborative partnerships between SMEs, government agencies, and financial institutions by utilizing USAID’s Theory of Change (TOC). This research uses a qualitative approach supported by in-depth interviews and Focus Group Discussions to enrich the insights of SME stakeholders, large companies, and SME actors and assess the impact of their roles. The results of this research highlight the critical role of SME Cooperative Banks (SCB) in improving SMEs’ access to credit and financial services, including collaborative governance frameworks and partnerships between SMEs, government agencies, and banks, which were identified as necessary to improve policy coherence and encourage conducive SME business environment conditions. The main findings of this research underscore the importance of the SCB model, demonstrating its potential to improve SME resilience and economic sustainability. This SCB model enriches the TOC indicators introduced by USAID. The study identifies gaps in digital infrastructure and market access that hinder SME growth and recommends targeted interventions to address these challenges. This study shows that SCB offers a promising pathway to increase the resilience and growth of SMEs in Indonesia, especially if accompanied by effective collaborative governance strategies. These initiatives can encourage inclusive economic development and strengthen the role of SMEs as drivers of the local economy. Recommendations include expanding the SCB model to other regions, encouraging digitalization, facilitating market access, advocating for a supportive policy framework, and integrating these strategies to advance the principles of USAID’s Theory of Change, fostering sustainable SME development and economic resilience.

This study aims to examine whether banks are compliant with adopting sustainability regulations and guidelines, and how they disclose their sustainable finance activities in sustainability reporting by providing case of Indonesian banking. Previous research provided discussions on the role of governance in supporting many variables as quantitative studies, but failed to demonstrate on going practices of how banking industries implement sustainable finance governance. Hence, this study provides originality by analyzing the extend of disclosures in order to evaluate their commitments in responding to sustainability regulations and guidelines, through disclosures of economic, environment, social, and governance (EESG) information in annual and sustainability reports. The samples were undertaken by examining the contents of sustainability and annual reports published for the financial year 2016 to 30 June 2021, for the Indonesian banks listed in business category 4, business category 3, and international banks, with the total of 202 reports. The results indicate that the implementation of sustainable finance in EESG information increases annually with social performances are the highest information disclosed, while the governance and economic information received the lowest level of disclosure. Results of this study will benefit policymakers, banks, and related companies to understand sustainable finance governance, and reveal the importance the role of banking industries to support Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Providing the insights of the ongoing discussions are expected to suggest following actions for further policies to support the implementation of sustainable finance, in particular to establish sustainability governance as a foundation of commitments, beyond complying to regulations.

In the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) era, the rapid digitalisation of services poses both opportunities and challenges for the banking sector. This study addresses how adopting artificial intelligence (AI) and online and mobile banking advancements can influence customer satisfaction, particularly in Kaduna State, Nigeria. Despite significant investments in AI and digital banking technologies, banks often struggle to align these innovations with customer expectations and satisfaction. Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), this research investigates the impact of customer satisfaction with online banking (C_O) on AI integration (I_A) and mobile banking convenience (C_M). The SEM model reveals that customer satisfaction with online banking significantly influences AI integration (path coefficient of 0.40) and mobile banking convenience (path coefficient of 0.68). These results highlight a crucial problem: while technological advancements in banking are growing, their effectiveness is highly dependent on customer satisfaction with existing digital services. The study underscores the need for banks to prioritise enhancing online banking experiences as a strategic lever to improve AI integration and mobile banking convenience. Consequently, the research recommends that Nigerian banks develop comprehensive frameworks to evaluate and optimise their technology integration strategies, ensuring that technological innovations align with customer needs and expectations in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Private banking institutions serve the financial sector’s wealthiest clientele via a dedicated value proposition. Based on the relevant tendencies and statistics, a remarkable expansion can be outlined since the mid-1990s. The aim of this study is to elaborate the Hungarian private banking market’s development as a case study. The paper also intends to add to the literature on this unique segment of the financial market. Based on the available statistics, the analysis primarily focuses on the Hungarian private banking market’s rapid development process. This can be underpinned by the clientele’s savings, number of accounts and respective segmentation limits of the institutions. Referring to the amount of savings, a correlation analysis indicates significant co-movements with specific social and economic variables. The growth rate of the Hungarian clientele’s savings outperformed the respective indicator in Western Europe during the review time period (2007–2020). The current paper also includes a section that summarises general challenges that private banking managers need to address during the development process. Generally, the literature on private banking can still be considered scarce, whereas there is a lack of studies on the Central-Eastern European region. The analysis of the Hungarian sector’s development path can serve with relevant information to any financial expert in the field.