<![CDATA[Digital technologies are changing how banks originate, monitor and transmit risk, yet the empirical evidence on whether they make banks safer is scattered across risk types, technologies and institutional settings. This article reports a systematic review, conducted under PRISMA 2020, of empirical studies on the relationship between digital technologies and bank risk or risk management. A Scopus search of English-language journal articles published in 2020–2026 returned 857 records. Title and abstract screening and eligibility assessment left 85 eligible studies, from which 28 were selected purposively to maximise variation in risk type, region and research design. Twenty-two of the 28 use archival bank-level panels, four rely on manager surveys, one is a country-level cross-section and one analyses central bank data descriptively. Half of the studies come from China. The synthesis points to three results. First, digitalization more often lowers than raises credit, operational, market and overall risk: among the 21 archival studies with a direct risk outcome, 12 report reductions, 4 report increases and 5 report mixed or non-linear effects. Second, bank-level and system-level results diverge, because the same technologies that reduce idiosyncratic risk can raise interconnectedness and contagion. Third, internal control, model governance, cybersecurity, regulation, and bank size and ownership repeatedly condition the outcome. Drawing on contingency theory and the resource-based view, the article proposes a Digital Risk Governance Framework and five propositions for future research. The evidence base is geographically narrow and relies mostly on adoption proxies, which limits generalisation beyond large emerging-market banking systems]]>
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