TY - JOUR TI - Digital lifeboat: Can Fintech development prevent shipwrecks in the textile industry? AU - Zhang, Qiongwen AU - Liu, Huifang AU - Zeng, Hongjun AU - Yan, Han AU - Ma, Shenglin T2 - Industria Textila AB - The textile industry’s lengthy supply chains, narrow profit margins, and substantial working capital pressures render financial risk management a critical determinant of sustainable industry development. Digital finance, through technological innovation, offers textile firms novel risk management tools. Drawing on information asymmetry theory and financing constraint theory, this study examines how digital finance affects textile firms’ financial risk and the underlying mechanisms. Using 3,443 firm-year observations from Chinese A-share textile industry listed companies spanning 2014–2023, we employ two-way fixed effects models to identify these relationships. Results show that digital finance development significantly reduces textile firms’ financial risk levels. Mechanism tests reveal that digital finance operates through two pathways, namely alleviating information asymmetry and easing financing constraints, with these pathways exhibiting complementary effects. Heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that digital finance’s risk-mitigating effects are more pronounced in central and western regions, firms with greater media coverage, non-state-owned enterprises, and large firms. These findings provide theoretical foundations and practical guidance for textile firms to leverage digital finance tools to optimise financing strategies and enhance risk management capabilities, while also offering policy insights for promoting digital transformation and high-quality development in the textile industry DA - 2026/05/05/ PY - 2026 DO - 10.35530/IT.077.02.202551 DP - DOI.org (Crossref) SP - 244 SN - 1222-5347 ST - Digital lifeboat UR - https://revistaindustriatextila.ro/images/2026/2/007%20QIONGWEN%20ZHANG_INDUSTRIA%20TEXTILA%20no.2_2026.pdf Y2 - 2026/05/17/13:56:09 ER -