Bank and Fintech Synergy: Decoding Channel Integration with a Corporate Social Responsibility and Digitalization Approach

Modern banking, for survival and competitiveness, requires immediate adaptation to new conditions. Fundamental changes in customer expectations, the emergence of emerging technologies, increasing complexity of laws and regulations, and economic challenges have all intensified the need for structural transformation and redesign of business processes in the banking sector. Considering these factors, traditional banks are better off forming strategic partnerships with financial technologies to increase their level of integrated channels in the current competitive market. The aim of the present study is to analyze the role of strategic cooperation between private banks in the country and Fintechs on creating integrated channels through the mediation of digital capabilities and social responsibility. The research orientation is applied and descriptive in terms of purpose, and the survey method was used to collect data and the correlation method and PLS software were used to analyze data. The research findings showed that the role of strategic partnerships between private banks in the country and Fintechs on integrated channels, digital capabilities, and social responsibility was confirmed, and the role of digital capabilities and social responsibility on integrated channels was confirmed. Also, the indirect role of the mediating variables of digital capabilities and social responsibility between the country's private banks' strategic partnerships with Fintechs and integrated channels was confirmed. All seven main hypotheses and twelve sub-hypotheses were confirmed. Today's banks can no longer ignore new financial technologies; strategic partnerships with these technologies are no longer a choice, but a necessity.